Changes in current employment positions after taking an operating room management course content by physicians and non-physicians and potential use of the content

Abstract

Background: Recently, we performed a survey study of 599 prior participants of an operating room management analytics course. Creation of the mailing list for the survey revealed that many of the non-physician prior participants were no longer working in jobs related to the course content. In the current study, we searched public LinkedIn profiles to estimate the relative risk for physicians versus non-physicians to potentially be using the course content in current jobs. Methods: Course registrations were used to search for LinkedIn profiles. Searches were performed by two authors and repeated on a single date to achieve a cross-sectional analysis. A dictionary of any word or part of a word related to surgical services was created inductively from the text of the course participants’ LinkedIn “experiences.” Results: Physicians who completed the course in operating room analytics had substantially more LinkedIn present experience(s) that overlapped with the course material than did other participants (P < 0.0001, estimated relative risk 2.60, 95% confidence interval 2.08–3.42). The result did not differ significantly when repeated limiting consideration to participants working in the United States versus elsewhere (P = 0.70 for homogeneity of odds ratio). The result did not differ significantly when repeated for the half of participants who took the course 2007–2012 versus 2013–2019 (P = 0.23). The relative risk significantly exceeded 1.00 both among non-physician participants with a Masters of Business Administration or Masters of Health Administration (P = 0.0012) and those without (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: After taking a course in operating room analytics, proportionately more non-physicians change jobs to positions that have no overlap with material related to surgical services. These results indicate importance of physicians learning and applying operating room management science for sustained use of the material in their hospitals.