Improving Anesthesia Provider Use of Emergency Manuals through a Training Session

Abstract

Purpose: The primary purpose of this project was to assess and improve anesthesia providers’ acceptance and intent to use emergency manuals in their practice. A secondary purpose was to determine how emergency manual usage would change anesthesia providers’ confidence in their performance during the management of crisis scenarios in the operating room. Background: Emergency manuals provide medical providers with vital information to manage various critical life-threatening situations. The use of emergency manuals during a crisis improves provider performance and patient outcomes, however, many anesthesia providers do not currently utilize these manuals during such situations. Training sessions have been shown to improve provider usage of such manuals. Methods: The project utilized pre-training and post-training electronic surveys created by Qualtrics to assess anesthesia providers’ attitudes towards emergency manuals and their willingness to utilize them. The pre-training survey was taken by participants before viewing a Panopto presentation training that presented the importance and benefits of emergency manual usage. The participants then completed the post-training survey that contained similar questions to assess changes in the providers’ attitudes towards the manuals, and how they perceived the manual would change their performance. Results: The number of participants who stated they were “extremely likely” to utilize the emergency manuals in their practice increased from four (30.7%) to eight (66.7%) after participation in the training session. The training session also showed an improvement in attitudes, as those rating emergency manuals as “extremely useful” in managing crisis situations in the OR increased from three (23.1%) to seven (58.3%). Additionally, those stating they “strongly agree” that emergency manual usage improves anesthesia provider performance in managing crises increased from three (23.1%) to seven (58.3%). Provider’s reporting, they were “absolutely certain” in their performance during the management of crisis situations increased from zero without the emergency manual to five with the manual. Conclusions: This project supports the usefulness of training sessions when attempting to introduce emergency manuals into a new setting. Training sessions are effective at increasing provider usage of the manuals and improving their perception of them. Additionally, emergency manual usage increases provider confidence during crisis situations.