Computerized Anesthesia Personnel System

CAPS, (Computerized Anesthesia Personnel System), is a personnel management system for a large anesthesia department. It is written in BASIC for the IBM PC or IBM-compatible computer using 2 or more 5 1/4 inch disk drives or a hard disk. CAPS is designed to facilitate assignment of up to 30 attending anesthesiologists, 40 residents, 15 CRNAs, 5 interns, 5 anesthesia assistants, and up to 15 medical students to the operating room schedule. The system supports part-time personnel, regular laboratory/office/reading days, and resident rotations inside the operating suite, outside the operating suite, and to secondary hospitals. CAPS generates an availability list each day, listing all persons available for the operating room and the rotations and call days assigned. It then lists all persons not available that day and the reason for the absence. CAPS also tracts vacation, meeting, administrative and compensatory time for all members of the department, and maintains an absence record for each person listing sick times and all other absences. CAPS generates a weekly staffing list showing days each person is available to the operating room and the total number of attendings, residents, CRNAs, and assistants available each day. This article discusses why the program was developed, how it was designed, and how well it has met the objectives of the designers.