Determining staffing requirements for a second shift of anesthetists by graphical analysis of data from operating room information systems.

Some operating room (OR) managers face the dilemma whereby all cases in a surgical suite are not completed during a regularly scheduled (e.g., 8-hour) day. If the anesthesia group at the surgical suite plans for its employed anesthetists to work a fixed number of hours each day, then more than 1 shift of anesthetists may be needed to care for the patients in the ORs. We developed a graphical statistical method that anesthetists and anesthesiologists can use to determine how many anesthesia providers are required on the second shift to minimize labor costs. The method uses data from surgical services information systems or hospital information systems to compensate for seasonality or seasonal variation in the number of ORs running at different times of the day. We also consider application of our method to scheduling surgical nurses with multiple overlapping shifts throughout the day.