Anesthesiologist staffing ratio tied to mortality, morbidity

Editor's Note

This study from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, finds that overlapping clinical responsibilities of a supervising anesthesiologist are associated with increased surgical patient mortality and morbidity.

A total of 578,815 adult surgical patients from 23 US academic and private hospitals were included in the analysis. The patients were divided into 4 groups based on care received from an anesthesiologist covering 1 surgical procedure (group 1), more than 1 to no more than 2 overlapping procedures (group 1-2), more than 2 to no more than 3 overlapping procedures (group 2-3), and more than 3 to no more than 4 overlapping procedures.

Compared with patients in group 1-2:

• Those in group 2-3 had a 4% increase in risk-adjusted mortality and morbidity (5.06% vs 5.25%).
• Those in group 3-4 had a 14% increase in risk-adjusted mortality and morbidity (5.06% vs 5.75%).

These findings suggest that increasing anesthesiologists’ overlapping clinical care responsibilities may increase patient risk and should be considered in clinical coverage efforts, the researchers say.