BOOKS OF RtfiDIfGS - PAHO/WHO

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Prior to developing the new curriculum, a task analysis was
undertaken in anesthesiology (14]. The study identified all tasks
performed and established which of them could reasonably be
delegated to non-physicians in a manner that would conserve the
anesthesiologist's time yet re-slt in quality patient care and
wider coverage. The determination of which tasks can be
delegated, under what conditions and to whom was made by a group
of qualified anesthesiologists.
The design of the curriculum was obviously an extension of
the results of the task analysis and of the uob Evaluation
Point-Rating System [15,16,17] to be discussed later in this
paper. An assessment of t.h types of activities that
non-physicians could reasonably engage in. resulted in the
curriculum for Anesthesiologists Associates (18].
Lastly, a methodology was developed to cesign optimal
anesthesia team involving Board-qualified MD's and the Anesthesia
Associates. The mix of provider categories was considered in this
methodology to be constrained by budget, personnel availabilities
and the acceptable levels of worker "overloads". The overloads
were used as surrogate measures of the quality of care.
The computer simulation developed to study the efficacy of
alternative team configurations generates a set of daily overload
indicators for different team configurations given some patient
load and mix distribution. The results are plotted on a two