Modeling daily veterinary anesthetist patient care hours and probabilities of exceeding critical thresholds

Am J Vet Res. 2024 Feb 27:1-10. doi: 10.2460/ajvr.23.09.0196. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTOBJECTIVE: Use a referral dental clinic model to study how to calculate accurate 95% upper confidence limits for probabilities of workloads (total case duration, including turnover time) exceeding allocated times.ANIMALS: Dogs and cats undergoing dental treatments.METHODS: Managerial data (procedure date and duration) collected over 44 consecutive operative workdays were used to calculate the daily anesthetist workload. Workloads were compared with a normal distribution using the Shapiro-Wilk test, serial correlation was examined by runs test, and comparisons among weekdays were made using the Kruskal-Wallis test. The 95% confidence limits for normally distributed workloads exceeding allocated times were estimated with a generalized pivotal quantity. The impact of a number of procedures was assessed with scatterplots, Pearson linear correlation coefficients, and multivariable linear regression.RESULTS: Mean anesthetist's workload was normally distributed (Shapiro-Wilk P = .25), without serial correlation (P = .45), and without significant differences among weekdays (P = .52). Daily workload, mean 9.39 hours and SD 3.06 hours, had 95% upper confidence limit of 4.47% for the probability that exceeding 16 hours (ie, 8 hours per each of 2 tables). There was a strong positive correlation between daily workload and the end of the workday (r = .85), significantly larger than the correlation b...
Source: American Journal of Veterinary Research - Category: Veterinary Research Authors: Source Type: research