Integrating computerized anesthesia charting into a hospital information system.

Background: Systems for computerization of anesthesia records have typically been 'stand-alone' computers many times connected to monitoring devices in the operating theater. A system was developed and tested at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA that was an integral part of the Health Evaluation through Logical Processing (HELP) hospital information system.

Methods: The system was evaluated using time and motion studies to assess impact of the system on the anesthesiologists use of time, an assessment for completeness of the anesthesia record was conducted, and a questionnaire was used to assess anesthesiologists attitudes. Timing studies were performed on 44 surgical cases before computerization and 41 surgical cases after computerization. For both before and after computerization, about 80% of procedures were D&C, vaginal hysterectomy, laparoscopy, tubal ligation, or A&P repair.

Results: The study showed a major reduction in time required for charting from 20.4% to 13.4% which was statistically significant (p = 0.0001). Other significant factors were a reduction in the time spent scanning the entire area which dropped from 10.5% to 5.6% (p = 0.001), patient preparation time increased from 10.1% to 13.1% (p = 0.02), the time spent arranging equipment increased from 6.4% to 8.1%, and the average time spent on non-anesthesia activities increased from 6.3% to 11.3%. The computerized anesthesia record was more legible, and complete than the manual record. The overall assessment of computer charting by anesthesiologists questionnaire was positive. The computerized anesthesia charting was preferred by the anesthesiologists, who, after one or two training sessions, used the system on their own.

Conclusions: It appears that having a computerized anesthesia charting system that is an integral part of a hospital information system not only saves anesthesiologists charting time, but also improves the quality of the record and was well accepted by busy private practice anesthesiologists.