A statistical analysis of weekday operating room anesthesia group staffingcosts at nine independently managed surgical suites

At many surgical suites, surgeons and patients schedule elective cases on w hatever future workday they choose, resulting in there being no limit on th e number of cases performed Each day. Staff are then scheduled in the manne r that satisfies the marketing guarantee to the surgeons, satisfies labor c ontracts, and minimizes staffing costs. We assessed weekday nurse anesthesi a group staffing at nine such suites to determine whether statistical metho ds can identify staffing solutions whereby all the cases are covered but fu r which staffing costs are less than those obtained using the staffing plan s implemented by anesthesia groups' managers. Two years of operating room i nformation system case duration and staffing data were analyzed. First- and second-shift staffing was assessed using previously published algorithms. The statistical methods identified staffing solutions with significantly de creased labor costs than those currently being used at eight of the nine su rgical suites. The statistical methods relied more on overtime than second- shift staffing. The incremental decrease in staffing costs achievable by us ing overlapping 8-, 10-, and 13-h shifts was negligible. Overall, we found that statistical methods can identify, for some surgical suites, staffing s olutions whereby all the cases are covered but for which costs are signific antly less and productivity significantly more than those obtained using th e plans developed by the managers based on their experience and the data.