Tag: Chief CRNA

Chief CRNA: OR Efficiency

The following information was provided by Jay Horowitz, candidate for AANA Region 7 director.  With the current budget restraints and emphasis on efficiency, Jay has documented the inherent inefficiency of staffing ratios  and the cost to the system.  Read Jay’s comments, link to the supporting articles and return to procrna.com and offer your comments.

From Jay: This week an article appears in “Anesthesiology, The Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.” (!!): Supervision Ratios that gets to the heart of the inefficiencies, waste and fraud inherent in “supervision” and “medical direction” models of anesthesia delivery. With an average 22 minute delay in multiple operating rooms several times a day, and an average Medicare reimbursement rate of $1.43/minute X 250 working days a year X 1000’s of US operating rooms, the money adds up awfully fast! So do the savings with greater CRNA utilization models validated in the recent Health Affairs and Nursing Economics articles with NO compromise in quality of care.  Click here to read the ASA article.

I’ve been writing about these inefficiencies for some time now: Streamlining Anesthesia Care and how we might rationally fix the problem. We need to make sure that this kind of information is available to every state and national decision maker and other stakeholders.   Click here to read an article from the Herald Tribune.

Read, enjoy, and return to make a comment

 

Chief CRNA: Negotiate Your Salary

In business, everything is negotiable.  As a Chief CRNA, you are responsible for not only setting the Corporate climate and enforcing the standards in your work group, but you also must attend to the business of Anesthesia.  Being fairly and adequately compensated is foundational to being a loyal and engaged employee.  Negotiation is essential both when you are being compensated and when you are hiring new people to work in your group.

An article written by Linda Jenkins on the salary.com web site details some of the elements of successful negotiation.  In a negotiation, each party should fulfill the needs of the other party.  In order to do so, you must know your strengths and resources and be able to respond to the needs of the other person.  She stresses preparation prior to the negotiation.

Click here to read the article in a PDF format or click here to link to the article published on salary.com.

The Chief CRNA area of procrna.com is a forum for those interested in Anesthesia Department Management to share ideas.  If you are a Chief CRNA, please use the guestbook on this page to let us know who you are and where you work.  Please pass this web site along to your colleagues.

 

Clinical Forum: Evidence Based Management

“Show me the money”   “Where’s the beef?”  Health care delivery has evolved over the past few decades to evidence based practice.  With the emergence of new drugs, techniques, and regulations health care providers are demanding “where’s the evidence”.  In our quest for evidence to guide our medical resource management, we often overlook the fact that our personnel are the most important resource that we manage.

An excellent article by Vicki Hess, RN published in Hospital and Health News (Jan 19, 2012) encourages evidence based management as a tool for increasing employee satisfaction and productivity.

In the article, Vicki states that in recent years, scholars have studied and written about evidence-based leadership and evidence-based management. A logical progression in this thinking is evidence-based employee engagement. Employees are engaged when they are satisfied (they like what they do), energized (they put effort behind it) and productive (their work contributes to organizational goals). Leaders who are effective in engaging others are facilitators of the engagement process. Because no one external source can motivate an employee, providing an environment that encourages intrinsic motivators is critical.

The article continues with the concept that employee preferences are an important but often overlooked factor in department management.  Engaged managers are in  touch with employee preferences and make personal contact with employees on a daily basis.

She concludes that by adopting an evidence-based employee engagement approach that combines current engagement research, leadership insights and employee preferences, leaders can positively impact important business results without subtracting from the bottom line.

Click here to read the excellent article by Vicki Hess, RN