Variation in Anesthesiology Provider-Volume for Complex Gastrointestinal Cancer Surgery

Objective: Examine between-hospital and between-anesthesiologist variation in anesthesiology provider–volume (PV) and delivery of high-volume anesthesiology care. Background: Better outcomes for anesthesiologists with higher PV of complex gastrointestinal cancer surgery have been reported. The factors linking anesthesiology practice and organization to volume are unknown. Methods: We identified patients undergoing elective esophagectomy, hepatectomy, and pancreatectomy using linked administrative health data sets (2007–2018). Anesthesiology PV was the annual number of procedures done by the primary anesthesiologist in the 2 years before the index surgery. High-volume anesthesiology was PV>6 procedures/year. Funnel plots to described variation in anesthesiology PV and delivery of high-volume care. Hierarchical regression models examined between-anesthesiologist and between-hospital variation in delivery of high-volume care use with variance partition coefficients (VPCs) and median odds ratios (MORs). Results: Among 7893 patients cared for at 17 hospitals, funnel plots showed variation in anesthesiology PV (median ranging from 1.5, interquartile range: 1–2 to 11.5, interquartile range: 8–16) and delivery of HV care (ranging from 0% to 87%) across hospitals. After adjustment, 32% (VPC 0.32) and 16% (VPC: 0.16) of the variation were attributable to between-anesthesiologist and between-hospital differences, respectively. This translated to an anesthesiologist MOR of 4.81 (95% CI, 3.27–10.3) and hospital MOR of 3.04 (95% CI, 2.14–7.77). Conclusions: Substantial variation in anesthesiology PV and delivery of high-volume anesthesiology care existed across hospitals. The anesthesiologist and the hospital were key determinants of the variation in high-volume anesthesiology care delivery. This suggests that targeting anesthesiology structures of care could reduce variation and improve delivery of high-volume anesthesiology care.