Chief CRNA: 360 Degree Evaluations

As the regulatory requirements continue to increase, the need for 360 degree evaluations has emerged as a part of JCAHO certification.  The concept is that those who do evaluations of their staff should also be evaluated by their staff.  In the case of CRNAs it means that the anesthetist should be evaluating the supervising Anesthesiologist.  Wilma Gillis from Madison Wisconsin is facing this issue in her department and wrote the following for CRNAs who read procrna.com.  Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.

Hey friends,
I am canvassing a few department leaders preliminarily who work in management or in large institutions to see what your place of employment does about this “new” and controversial concept for implementing 360 degree evaluation of ALL team members.  Does your institution have a way for its CRNAs to evaluate the anesthesiologists?

To give you some background on this, twice we in our group decided this would be an important contribution to our concerns.  We wrote a tool over the last years and it was shut down by our administration due to absolute fury by several anesthesiologists. The aspects of performance included in this tool had nothing to do with evaluating their medical practice.  It revolved around things that were important to harmonious, collaborative practice.

Now JCAHO is mandating the idea after several years of hinting at it.  I am very interested in learning of your various departmental evaluation processes and tools.  If any of you have given evaluations to anesthesiologists, how did it go?  Repercussions?

Wilma Gillis.