J Med Syst
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There is a growing emphasis on both cost containment and better quality health care. The creation of better methods for alerting providers and their departments to the costs associated with patient care is one tool for improving efficiency. Since anesthetic medications used in the OR setting are one easily monitored factor contributing to OR costs, anesthetic cost report cards can be used to assess the cost and, potentially the quality of care provided by each practitioner. ⋯ Also included can be subcategories of pre-medication, antibiotics, hypnotics, local anesthetics, neuromuscular blocking drugs, analgesics, vasopressors, beta-blockers, anti-emetics, volatile anesthetics, and reversal agents. The concept of anesthetic cost report card should be further developed for individual feedback, and could include many other dimensions. Such a report card can be utilized to encourage lower anesthetic costs, quality improvement among anesthesia providers, and for cost containment in the operating room.