Evidenced-Based Practice Improvement Project: Anesthesia Preoperative Testing Protocol

In the United States, the number of patients seeking surgical interventions in the outpatient setting continues to rise. With more than 22.5 million annual procedures performed in outpatient surgery centers, total healthcare costs across the United States increases as the population ages and requires surgical interventions. An opportunity for a practice improvement lies within outpatient surgery centers, for the anesthesia care team, by efficiently managing preoperative testing decisions prior to surgery. Decisions regarding patient preoperative testing require careful consideration, centered around the patient’s medical history, comorbidities, or disease processes to decrease the amount of unnecessary healthcare costs. Evidence-based guidelines and recommendations have shown utilizing a standardized anesthesia preoperative testing protocol will lower unnecessary healthcare costs. This project was initiated to validate an existing anesthesia preoperative testing protocol at an outpatient surgical facility. To facilitate our scholarly project, staff members were provided with a pre-survey to determine baseline preoperative testing protocol knowledge and confidence in the existing protocol. Next, implementation of an educational PowerPoint session was presented to the staff members. Then a post-survey was administered to staff members to evaluate post education knowledge, retention, and confidence when ordering preoperative tests. Last, the staff members graded the PowerPoint presentation utilizing the PEMAT-P screening tool.

Keywords: anesthesia preoperative testing protocol, unnecessary lab testing, preoperative testing guidelines, outpatient surgery preoperative testing, unnecessary diagnostic testing, low-risk surgery procedures