Quality assessment with a computerized anesthesia information management system (AIMS).

Private practice anesthetists are skeptical about the worth of quality assessment programs because of the difficulty of creating and maintaining an accurate and efficient medical record, the paucity of data caused by the recent shift in emphasis from process to outcome data, the tendency of adverse outcomes to be presented with no denominators, the lack of integration between process and outcome data, and the tendency for quality assessment programs to require duplicate documentation. An efficient anesthesia information management system (AIMS) gathers accurate, complete, and legible information before, during, and after each anesthetic procedure. One such system used in a private practice setting at Burbank Hospital, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, has a computerized data base to draw from preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative events, with a judicious selection of both process and outcome indicators. The clinical anesthesia data base can be an effective tool for practical and efficient clinical competency evaluations and can lead to many improvements in the quality of anesthesia care delivery.