Tag perioperative surgical home

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PHYSICIAN ANESTHESIOLOGIST AND A NURSE ANESTHETIST

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
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What’s the difference between a physician anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist? After the first 3 – 4 years in the workforce, either one can master the manual skills of anesthesia. That is, either one can display excellence in intubating the trachea, performing a spinal or an epidural anesthetic, performing a nerve block, inserting an arterial line, or inserting a central venous pressure catheter. There is no fork in the career path that makes a busy Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) automatically inferior to a medical doctor anesthesiologist in hands-on skills. So what really is the difference between a physician anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist? The answer: internal medicine.

All physician anesthesiologists graduate from medical school, where they rotate through clerkships in surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics-gynecology, internal medicine, emergency medicine and psychiatry, as well as electives in surgical or medicine subspecialties of their choice.

By contrast, CRNAs are registered nurses experienced in intensive care or emergency room nursing, who then enter a 2 – 3 year program of learning the skills to anesthetize patients. CRNAs can now administer anesthesia independent of any physician anesthesiologist supervision in the majority of the United States. 

The difference between a physician anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist is that the former has a depth of knowledge of 1) the physiology of the human body, 2) the pathophysiology of diseases, 3) the breadth of pharmacology, and 4) the ability to make diagnoses and prescribe treatment. In short, the physician anesthesiologist has extensive training in the internal medicine essentials of 1), 2), 3), and 4) above.

Nurse anesthetists are valuable and integral cogs in American healthcare. It’s not my intention to demean or minimize the role of CRNAs. My goal is to point out the most specific difference between a physician anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist.

At Stanford our department is named the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine. What is Perioperative Medicine? Perioperative Medicine is all the medical care before, during, and after surgery. Is Perioperative Medicine a subspecialty of internal medicine? In a way, it is. Following an internal medicine residency, graduates may subspecialize in cardiology, oncology, pulmonary medicine, kidney medicine, infectious disease, critical care, or . . . perioperative medicine. When I finished my Stanford internal medicine residency, the top four choices among my colleagues for the next step were: #1 a cardiology fellowship, #2 general internal medicine private practice, #3 an anesthesia residency, or #4 an oncology fellowship.

Stanford University now offers a combined internal medicine/anesthesiology residency, with the goal of training leaders in anesthesiology. The PGY1 year is spent entirely on medicine rotations.  The PGY2 year consists of all anesthesia rotations.  During PGY3-5 years, the resident alternates between 3 months of medicine rotations and 3 months of anesthesia rotations.

The outgoing Chairman of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford is Ronald Pearl MD PhD, an outstanding clinician and scientist who led our department for twenty-two years. In addition to board-certification in internal medicine and anesthesiology, Dr. Pearl is also board certified in critical care medicine. Dr. Pearl is one of the smartest clinicians I’ve ever met. His extensive internal medicine knowledge raises him above other anesthesia providers. 

Currently, anesthesiology residency programs are three years in duration, beginning after a resident has completed at least one year of internship. During those three years of anesthesia residency (PGY2 – PGY4) the resident rotates through: 

  • two one-month rotations in: obstetric anesthesiology, pediatric anesthesiology, neuro anesthesiology, and cardiothoracic anesthesiology
  • a minimum of one month in the adult intensive care unit during each of the three years 
  • three months of pain medicine, including one month in acute perioperative pain, one month in chronic pain, and one month of regional analgesia/peripheral nerve blocks
  • one-half month in a preoperative evaluation clinic 
  • one-half month in a post anesthesia care unit, and one-half month in out-of-OR locations.  

These rotations of an anesthesia resident develop the young doctor into a clinician comfortable in preoperative assessment and management, in the intraoperative administration of anesthesia, and in the postoperative evaluation and treatment of patients. 

Currently, internal medicine residency programs are three years in duration, including a one-year internship in internal medicine. During those three years (PGY1 -PGY3) a resident rotates through: 

  • a minimum of 4 months of critical care (medical ICU or cardiac care unit) rotations
  • a minimum of 1/3 of Internal Medicine training occurs in an ambulatory setting
  • a minimum of 1/3 of Internal Medicine training occurs in an inpatient setting
  • a longitudinal continuity clinic of 130 one-half-day sessions over the course of training, including one clinic per month. The continuity clinic includes evaluation of performance data for resident’s panel of patients.
  • exposure to each of the internal medicine subspecialties and to neurology
  • an assignment in geriatric medicine
  • an emergency medicine experience of four weeks
  • electives available in psychiatry, allergy/immunology, dermatology, medical ophthalmology, office gynecology, otorhinolaryngology, non-operative orthopedics, palliative medicine, sleep medicine, and rehabilitation medicine

These rotations of an internal medicine resident develop the young doctor into a broadly trained clinician experienced in multiple areas.

I’m not advocating that anesthesia departments be folded under the umbrella of their institution’s department of internal medicine. Instead, what I am recognizing is that the field of anesthesiology is more than putting in breathing tubes, arterial catheters, IV lines, or nerve block needles in a variety of different surgical settings. The field of anesthesiology is understanding and managing medical problems before, during, and after surgery, i.e., Perioperative Medicine. Describing our specialty with the word “Anesthesia” is an oversimplification of what we do. If our specialty was newly named today, it would be called Perioperative Medicine, period.

What about pediatric perioperative medicine? Doesn’t pediatric perioperative medicine involve the knowledge base of pediatricians, instead of the knowledge base of internal medicine? Yes. Deep knowledge of pediatric medicine instead of internal medicine (on adult patients) applies to pediatric perioperative medicine. No doubt a pediatrician who then completes an anesthesia residency will likely be an outstanding pediatric perioperative doctor, but only 5.4 % of anesthesia care in the United States is on pediatric patients less than 15 years old. The majority of the knowledge base for anesthesia care pertains to adult patients, i.e. the knowledge base for internal medicine physicians.

Several examples will illustrate why internal medicine forms the backbone of perioperative anesthesia practice. Before surgery, a patient who presents with insulin dependent diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and obstructive sleep apnea is an example of the kind of patient an internal medicine doctor sees regularly in his or her outpatient clinic. During surgery, a patient who develops atrial fibrillation or marked hypertension is an example of the kind of events an internal medicine doctor sees in an intensive care unit. After surgery, a patient who presents with chest pain or shortness of breath is an example of the kind of patient an internal medicine doctor sees in the emergency room or in the intensive care unit. Wait . . . you can argue that a CRNA has previous experience working as a registered nurse in an ICU or an emergency room before beginning nurse anesthetist training. But a registered nurse in an ICU or an emergency room does not independently diagnose and treat medical conditions. A registered nurse in an ICU or an emergency room follows written orders from a medical doctor. There is a world of difference between a medical doctor commanding diagnosis and treatment in an ICU/emergency room versus a registered nurse who follows orders.

Should all anesthesia residency training follow the Stanford optional model of combining internal medicine and anesthesia residencies into one program? No. Prolonging the training of every physician anesthesiologist in the United States makes little sense, but those who desire to be leaders will consider this double-residency option. 

Recent years brought an attempt to rename the territory of anesthesiologists as the “Perioperative Surgical Home.”  The Perioperative Surgical Home is defined as “a patient-centered, team-based, and coordinated perioperative care setup, composed of the head anesthesiologist-perioperativist in tandem with dedicated nurse practitioners and other PSH team doctors.” This is a move in a positive direction, with the intent of better patient care coordinated by an anesthesiologist-led team. There is an economic barrier to the Perioperative Surgical Home, in that the PSH may appear to be a coup attempt for anesthesia departments to take over jurisdictions from preoperative and postoperative internal medicine doctors. Any adoption of the PSH will likely be gradual, as the battle for patients plays out in each medical center.

Instead, a first step is that anesthesia departments redefine themselves as Departments of Perioperative Medicine, and that the academic training for these departments involve increasing time spent expanding the internal medicine knowledge base of residents in medical intensive care units, cardiac intensive care units, medicine wards, and medicine clinics. Performing month after month of repetitive intraoperative anesthesia care has a decreasing return on expanding a resident’s fund of knowledge, and can serve to make the role of a physician anesthesiologists and the role of a nurse anesthetist close to being the same.

It’s important that physician anesthesiologists create perceivable differences between themselves and CRNAs. The role of Perioperative Medical Doctors is a more broad and more specific identity when compared to what nurse anesthetists do. Let’s make our young physician anesthesiologist trainees into Perioperative Medicine Specialists, instead of confusing them with other anesthesia professionals who can also administer propofol, sevoflurane, and rocuronium.

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:
How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?
Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?
Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?
What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?
How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?
Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?
What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:
10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia
Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?
12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training
Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 170/99?
Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams
What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

READ ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM

13 MAJOR CHANGES IN ANESTHESIOLOGY IN THE LAST TEN YEARS

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 2 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Let’s look at 13 major changes in the last ten years of anesthesiology, and give a letter grade to mark the significance of each advance:

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SUGAMMADEX – The long awaited reversal agent for neuromuscular paralysis reached the market in 2016, and by my review, the drug is wonderful. I’ve found sugammadex to reverse rocuronium paralysis in less than a minute in every patient who has at least one twitch from a nerve stimulator. The dose is expensive at about $100 per patient, but at this time that’s cheaper than the acquisition costs for neostigmine + glycopyrrolate. The acquisition cost of neostigmine + glycopyrrolate at our facilities exceeds $100, and this combination of drugs can take up to 9 minutes to reverse rocuronium paralysis. Sugammadex reversal can make the duration of a rocuronium motor block almost as short acting as a succinylcholine motor block, and sugammadex can also eliminate complications in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit due to residual postoperative muscle paralysis. Grade = A.

 

SHORTAGES OF GENERIC INTRAVENOUS DRUGS – Over the last five years we’ve seen unexpected shortages of fentanyl, morphine, propofol, ephedrine, neostigmine, glycopyrrolate, meperidine, and atropine, to name a few. These are generic drugs that formerly cost pennies per ampoule. In the current marketplace, generic manufacturers have limited the supplies and elevated the prices of these medications to exorbitant levels. I wish I’d had the foresight and the money ten years ago to invest in a factory that produced generic anesthetic drugs. Grade = F.

 

THE PERIOPERATIVE SURGICAL HOME – The American Society of Anesthesiologists has been pushing this excellent concept for years now—the idea being that a team of physician anesthesiologists will manage all perioperative medical care from preoperative clinic assessment through discharge, including intraoperative care, postoperative care and pain management in the PACU, the ICU, and the hospital wards. The goal is improved patient care with decreased costs. It’s not clear the idea has widespread traction as of yet, and the concept will always be at odds with the individual aspirations of internal medicine doctors, hospitalists, intensivists, surgeons, and certified nurse anesthetists, all who want to make their own management decisions, and all who desire to be paid for owning those decisions. Grade = B-.

 

MULTIMODAL PAIN MANAGEMENT FOLLOWING TOTAL JOINT REPLACEMENTS – The development of pain management protocols which include neuroaxial blocks, regional anesthetic blocks, local anesthetic infiltration by surgeons, oral and intravenous pain medications, have advanced the science of pain relief for total knee and total hip replacements. The cooperation between surgeons, anesthesiologists, and internal medicine specialists to develop the protocols has been outstanding, the standardized checklist care has been well accepted, and patients are benefiting. Grade = A.

 

ULTRASOUND GUIDED REGIONAL ANESTHESIA – Regional anesthetic blocks are not new, but visualizing the nerves via ultrasound is. The practice is becoming widespread, and the analysis of economic and quality data is ongoing. Ultrasound guided regional anesthesia is a major advance for painful orthopedic surgeries, but I worry about overuse of the technique on smaller cases for the economic benefit of the physician wielding the ultrasound probe. A second concern is the additive risk of administrating two anesthetics (regional plus general) to one patient. I’ve reviewed medical records of patients with adverse outcomes related to regional blocks, and I’m concerned ultrasound guided regional anesthesia may be creating a new paradigm of postoperative complications, e.g. prolonged nerve damage or intravascular injection of local anesthetics. In the future I look forward to seeing years of closed claims data regarding this increasing use of regional anesthesia. Grade = B.

 

VIDEOLARYNGOSCOPY – The invention of the GlideScope and its competitors the C-MAC, King Vision, McGrath and Airtraq videolaryngoscopes was a major advance in our ability to intubate patients with difficult airways. My need for fiberoptic intubation has plummeted since videolaryngoscopy became available. I’d recommend that everyone who attempts traditional laryngoscopy for endotracheal intubation have access to a video scope as a backup, should traditional intubation prove difficult. Grade = A.

 

ANESTHESIOLOGIST ASSISTANTS (AAs) – The American Society of Anesthesiologists is championing the idea of training AAs to work with physician anesthesiologists in an anesthesia care team model. A primary reason is to combat the influence and rise in numbers of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) by inserting AAs as a substitute. Not a bad idea, but like the Perioperative Surgical Home, the concept of AAs is gaining traction slowly, and the penetration of AAs into the marketplace is minimal. To date there are only ten accredited AA education programs in the United States. Grade = B-.

 

CHECKLISTS – We now have pre-incision Time Outs, pre-induction Anesthesia Time Outs, and pre-regional anesthesia Block Time Outs. It’s hard to argue with these checklists. Even if 99.9% of the Time Outs change nothing, if 0.1% of the Time Outs identify a miscommunication or a laterality mistake, they are worth it. Grade = A.

 

ANESTHESIA ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS (EMRs)– The idea is sound. Everything in the modern world is digitalized, so why not medical records? The problem is the current product. There are multiple EMR systems, and the systems cannot communicate with each other. Can you imagine a telephone system where Sprint phones cannot communicate with AT&T phones? The current market leader for hospitals is Epic, a ponderous, expensive system that does little to make the pertinent information easier to find in medical charts. For acute care medicine such as anesthetic emergencies, the medical charting and documentation in Epic gets in the way of hands-on anesthesia care. In the past, when I administered 50 mg of rocuronium, I simply wrote “50” in the appropriate space on a piece of paper. In Epic I have to make at least 4 mouse clicks to do the same thing. This Epic entry cannot be made on a touch screen because the first rocuronium window on the touch screen is a three-millimeter-tall box, too small for a finger touch. I’d like to see Apple or Google develop better EMR software than we have at present. Perhaps the eventual winning product will be voice activated or will involve easy touch screen data entry and data access. And all EMR systems should interact with each other, so patient privacy medical information can be portable. Grade = C-.

 

THE ECONOMICS OF ANESTHESIA – When I began in private practice in 1986, most successful anesthesiologists joined a single-specialty anesthesia group. This group would cover a hospital or several hospitals along with nearby surgery centers and offices. The group would bill for physician services, and insurance companies would reimburse them. Each physician joining the group would endure a one or two-year tryout period, after which he or she became a partner. Incomes were proportional to the number of cases an individual attended to. The models are changing. Smaller anesthesia groups are merging into larger groups, better equipped to negotiate with healthcare insurers and ObamaCare. More and more healthcare systems are employing their own anesthesiologists. In a healthcare system, profits are pooled and shared amongst the varying specialists. This model is not objectionable. Anesthesiologists share the profits with less lucrative specialties such as internal medicine and pediatrics, but the anesthesiologists are assured a steady flow of patients from the primary care physicians and surgeons within the system. The end result is less income than in a single-specialty anesthesia group, but more security. Grade = B.

 

THE SPECTER OF A BAN ON BALANCE BILLING – In a perfect world all physician groups would be contracted with all health insurance companies, at a monetary rate acceptable to both sides. Unfortunately there are insurance company-physician group rifts in which an acceptable rate is not negotiated. In these instances, the physician provider for a given patient may be out of network with the patient’s insurer, not because of provider greed (as portrayed by some politicians and insurers) but because the insurance company did not offer a reasonable contracted rate. Some politicians believe physician out-of-network balance billing should be outlawed. This would give unilateral power to insurance companies. Why would an insurance company offer a reasonable rate to a physician provider group, if the insurance company can pay the physicians a low rate and the new law says the physicians have no alternative but to accept it as payment in full? The no-balance-billing politicians will portray patients as victims, but if they succeed in changing the laws, physicians will become victims. Physicians as well as consumers must unite to defeat this concept. Grade = F.

 

CORPORATE ANESTHESIA – National companies are buying multiple existing anesthesia groups and changing the template of our profession in America. The current physician owners of a practice can sell their group to a publically traded national company for a large upfront payoff. The future salaries of anesthesiologists of that group are then decreased, and the rest of the profit formerly garnered by the physicians goes instead to the bottom line of the national company’s shareholders. If this model becomes widespread, the profession of anesthesiology will morph into a job populated by moderately reimbursed employees. Grade = D.

 

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE FOR CRNAs – Anesthesiology is the practice of medicine. In a two-year training program, an ICU nurse can learn to administer propofol and sevoflurane, and how to intubate most patients, and become a CRNA. It takes a physician anesthesiologist to manage complex preoperative medical problems, intraoperative complications, and postoperative medical complications. I understand rural states such as Montana and the Dakotas cannot recruit enough physician anesthesiologists to hospitals in their smallest towns, but for states like California to legalize independent anesthesia practice for CRNAs is unconscionable. Grade = D.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

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LEARN MORE ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM BY CLICKING ON THE PICTURE BELOW:

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THE ACHILLES’ HEEL OF ANESTHESIOLOGY… WHAT IS THE GREATEST THREAT TO OUR SPECIALTY?

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THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Anesthesiology is a wonderful profession, as I have described in many previous posts on theanesthesiaconsultant.com. But nothing is perfect, and anesthesia has one threat which could in time undermine the entire specialty. What is this threat? What is anesthesiology’s Achilles’ heel?

No, it’s not the nurse anesthetists, nor the stress of covering surgeries in the middle of the night, nor the stress of saving patients who are trying to die in front of our eyes during acute care emergencies.

Our Achilles’ heel is that we don’t have our own patients.

Primary care doctors have a bevy of patients who return to see them at regular intervals. Specialists and surgeons have a clinic full of patients who are referred to them from primary care physicians. Health care systems are acquiring primary care providers and top specialists as rapidly as they can, to assemble a sizable network of covered lives. This network of patients will serve to keep their clinics and hospitals full and profitable.

In the operating rooms, the patients are brought in by the surgeons. Anesthesia providers, be they physician anesthesiologists or nurse anesthetists, are tasked with providing safe and quality anesthesia care. Anesthesia providers are at best consultants, and at worst, “worker bees” called upon to provide a service.

Which of the following are commodities?

  1. Crude Oil
  2. Copper
  3. Soy beans
  4. Anesthesia services
  5. All of the above

Consider the answer to be E.

To hospital administrators and CEOs, anesthesia “worker bees” can be considered an expense or a commodity, somewhat similar to registered nurses, orderlies, surgical technicians, or even janitors. We can be regarded as a commodity because, like the nurses, technicians, and janitors, patient referrals do not originate with us. To a hospital CEO, each surgeon is an asset who brings surgical patients to surgery, whereas each anesthesia provider may be thought of as a worker necessary to do surgery.

Note that anesthesiologists who specialize in pain medicine in a clinic setting can be exceptions to this discussion. Pain specialists can generate their own patients from their clinics on which to do pain-relieving procedures. In their operating room role they more resemble the niche of a surgeon than that of an anesthetist.

In the current medical economy, when a hospital CEO, a health care system, or a surgery center is looking for anesthesia coverage, a priority is to acquire quality service of these anesthesia “worker bees” at the lowest possible cost. The hospital CEO, health care system, or surgery center may then grant an exclusive contract to the cheapest provider. This exclusive contract may go to a national anesthesia company, rather than the anesthesiologists currently on staff, or this exclusive contract may go to a newly hired anesthesia chairman, empowered to hire a new staff of anesthesiologists or nurse anesthetists at a budget rate.

You may be an outstanding anesthesiologist, but you are replaceable. Your anesthesia group may be an outstanding group, but your whole group is replaceable.

There are problems even if your group has an exclusive contract. Per the California Society of Anesthesiologists’ Dr. Keith Chamberlain, negative aspects of an anesthesia exclusive contract include:

  • “You can lose an exclusive contract. Anesthesia job security is based on quality, service, and (more recently) cost. Today, 80 per cent of anesthesia groups receive some subsidy from hospitals, which are strongly motivated to reduce it. Competitors often approach hospitals with business plans that eliminate the subsidy, and the decision for the hospital often comes down to cost. If your hospital privileges are tied to an exclusive contract, your ability to continue to practice will depend on your relationship with the new contract holder.
  • The contract holder will eventually experience pressure from the hospital to contract with its payers. There may be a phrase in the contract about “cooperation” with payers. Frequently this means that the contract holder must agree to a contract rate—good or bad.
  • If case volume or the number of anesthetizing locations increases, the contract may insist on the availability of additional providers, regardless of OR inefficiency or payer mix.
  • Many standard contracts allow either party to terminate without cause on 90 days following the first anniversary.”

(http://members.csahq.org/blog/2014/07/21/dont-count-exclusive-contract)

An Internet search documents specific examples of anesthesiology groups losing their jobs around the United States:

  • From Oregon, in 2010: “Turmoil at Good Samaritan: Up to 23 anesthesiologists will lose their jobs in September when Legacy Good Samaritan ends its contract with the Oregon Anesthesiology Group. The hospital plans to replace the doctors with nurse anesthetists. Unhappy physicians and their supporters have raised concerns about whether the switch puts cost savings ahead of patient safety (nurses make less than docs). Legacy spokesman Brian Terrett says the hospital will gain more control but not benefit financially from the transition because anesthesia costs are billed to patients. He added that the nurse anesthetists will be fully credentialed and supervised by doctors.” Willamette Week: July 7, 2010(https://www.oregon-crna.org/site/content/23-anesthesiologists-will-lose-their-jobs-september)
  • From the state of Virginia, in 2015: “A conflict between Riverside Regional Medical Center and its former anesthesia company has escalated to the point that Riverside is unable to perform open-heart surgery until April 23. Riverside did not renew its contract with Virginia Anesthesia and Perioperative Care Specialists and last week brought a new anesthesia company on board…. What happened? Riverside Regional Medical Center ended a long-standing relationship with a local anesthesiology group, Virginia Anesthesia and Perioperative Care Specialists, and contracted with a national management company, Soma Health Partners, effective April 7. Texas-based Soma is bringing in new anesthesiologists because, contractually, the local company’s employees cannot join the new company for two years.”( http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_riverside_0415apr15,0,5448759.story?track=rss)
  • From California, in 2011: In her blog, A Penned Point, Dr. Karen Sibert writes “At Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia, hospital administrators put out the anesthesia contract for competitive bidding in 2011, and the all-MD anesthesia group that had held the contract for years lost out to Somnia.  A new anesthesiology chief came on board, and a care team model with nurse anesthetists took over.” (http://apennedpoint.com)

What can anesthesiologists do to respond to this Achilles’ heel threat and create better job security? To reduce the urge for a hospital CEO to displace their current anesthesia providers, you need to:

  1. Provide the highest quality of medical care to your hospital and surgery centers.
  2. Provide high service to your hospital and surgery centers.
  3. Maintain high quality professional relationships with surgeons, other physician specialties, and administrators, so there is little incentive to demand a change.
  4. Become involved in hospital medical committees and politics, both for self-preservation and because these are roles typically filled by physicians, not nurse anesthetists.
  5. Avoid greed in negotiations over contracted rates and hospital stipends. By all means acquire the best deal you can, but realize that unreasonable expectations for monetary reimbursement may give the CEO an incentive to seek bids from a national anesthesia company or an alternative anesthesia group.
  6. Consider moving toward the new Perioperative Surgical Home model, as advocated by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The PSH is a means for anesthesiologists to become valuable preoperative and postoperative necessities for their health care system, rather than just operating room anesthesia providers (which are easier to replace).

Hospital administrators and CEOs are trained to manage the bottom line. They will consider all reasonable means to reduce expenses. Be aware that your anesthesia group can be seen as a replaceable commodity. Consider points 1 – 6 above, and try not to give your hospital administrator a reason to look elsewhere for anesthesia coverage.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

THE PERIOPERATIVE SURGICAL HOME HAS EXISTED FOR YEARS

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

The American Society of Anesthesiologists is supporting an expansion of the role of anesthesiologists in the delivery of perioperative care in hospitals. This proposed model is called the Perioperative Surgical Home. The American Society of Anesthesiologists defines the Perioperative Surgical Home as “a patient centered, innovative model of delivering health care during the entire patient surgical/procedural experience; from the time of the decision for surgery until the patient has recovered and returned to the care of his or her Patient Centered Medical Home or primary care provider.”

 

It’s a sound idea, and it resembles a model that’s existed for decades outside the hospital. In an outpatient surgery center the Perioperative Surgical Home concept is carried out by an anesthesiologist who is the Medical Director. I can speak to this, as I’ve been the Medical Director at a busy surgery center only minutes from Stanford University in downtown Palo Alto, for the past 12 years.

A surgery center Medical Director is responsible for:

  • All preoperative matters, including preoperative medical assessment of patients, scheduling of block times, surgical cases, anesthesia assignments, and creation of protocols,
  • All intraoperative matters, including quality issues, efficiency and turnover of cases, and the economics of running a profitable set of operating rooms, and
  • All postoperative matters, including overseeing Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) nursing care, post anesthesia medical decisions, and supervision of post-discharge follow up with patients.

All medical problems including complications, hospital transfers, and patient complaints, are routed through the anesthesiologist Medical Director.

A key difference between a surgery center and a hospital is scale. A busy hospital has dozens of operating rooms, hundreds of surgeries per day, and hundreds of inpatient beds. No one Medical Director can oversee all of this every day—it takes a team. At Stanford University Medical Center the anesthesia department is known as the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine. The word “Perioperative” is appropriate, because anesthesia practice involves medical care before, during, and after surgery. A team of anesthesiologists is uniquely qualified to oversee preoperative assessment, intraoperative management, and post-operative pain control and medical care in the hospital setting, just as the solitary Medical Director does in a surgery center setting.

A second key difference between a surgery center and a hospital is that medical care is more complex in a hospital. Patients are sicker, invasive surgeries disturb physiology to a greater degree, and patients stay overnight after surgery, often with significant pain control or intensive care requirements. Again, a team of physicians from a Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine is best suited to supervise management of these problems.

The greatest hurdle to instituting the Perioperative Surgical Home model is pre-existing economic reality. In a hospital, other departments such as surgery, internal medicine, radiology, cardiology, pulmonology, and nursing are intimately involved in the perioperative management of surgery patients. Each of these departments has staff, a budget, income, and incentives related to maintaining their current role. Surgeons intake patients through their preoperative clinics, and may regard themselves as captains of the ship for all medical care on their own patients. Internal medicine doctors are called on for preoperative medical clearance on patients, and thus compete with anesthesia preoperative clinics. The internal medicine department includes hospitalists, inpatient doctors who may be involved in the post-operative management of inpatients. Invasive radiologists perform multiple non-invasive surgical procedures. Like their surgical colleagues, they may see themselves as decision makers for all medical care on their own patients. Cardiologists manage coronary care units and intensive care units in some hospitals, and may feel threatened by anesthesiologists intent on taking over their territory. Pulmonologists manage coronary care units and intensive care units in some hospitals, and may feel threatened by anesthesiologists intent on taking over their territory. Nurses are involved in all phases of perioperative care. If the chain of command among physicians changes, nurses must be willing partners of and participants with such change.

Why has the anesthesiology leadership role of a Medical Director evolved naturally at surgery centers while the Perioperative Surgical Home idea has to be sold to hospitals? At surgery centers the competing financial incentives of surgeons, internal medicine doctors, radiologists, pulmonologists, cardiologists, and nurses are minimal. In a freestanding surgery center, surgeons want to be able to depart for their offices following procedures, and welcome the skills that anesthesiologists bring to managing any medical complications that arise. Internal medicine doctors have no significant on-site role in surgery centers, although they are helpful office consultants for the anesthesiologist/Medical Director in assembling preoperative clearance for outpatients. Radiologists have no significant on-site role at most surgery centers—if they do perform invasive radiology procedures on outpatients, they too welcome the skills that anesthesiologists bring to managing medical complications that arise. Because there are no intensive care units at a surgery center, there is no role for pulmonary or cardiology specialists. Nursing leadership at a surgery center works hand-in-hand with the Medical Director to assure optimal nursing care of all patients.

Hospital administrators anticipate penetration of the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model for payment of medical care by insurers. In the ACO model, a medical center receives a predetermined bundled payment for each surgical procedure. The hospital and all specialties caring for that patient negotiate what percentage of that ACO payment each will receive. A Perioperative Surgical Home may or may not simplify this task. You can bet anesthesiologists see the Perioperative Surgical Home as a means to increase their piece of the pie. Ideally the Perioperative Surgical Home will be a means to streamline medical care, decrease costs, and increase profit for the hospital and all departments. Anesthesiologists are rightly concerned that if they don’t take the lead in this process, some other specialty will.

Establishing the Perioperative Surgical Home is an excellent opportunity for anesthesiologists to facilitate patient care in multiple aspects of hospital medicine. To make this dream a reality across multiple medical centers, anesthesiology leadership must demonstrate excellent public relations skills to convince administrators and chairpeople of the multiple other specialties. I expect data on outcomes improvement or cost-control to be slow and inadequate to proactively provoke this change. It will take significant lobbying, convincing, and promoting. Change will require a leap of faith for a hospital, and such change will only be accomplished by anesthesia leadership that captures the confidence of the hospital CEO and the chairs of multiple other departments.

I’m impressed by the adoption of the Perioperative Surgical Home at the University of California at Irvine. I’ve listened to Zev Kain, MD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine lecture, and I’ve met him personally. He’s the prototype of the charismatic, intelligent, and convincing physician needed to convince others that the Perioperative Surgical Home is the model of the future.(http://www.anesthesiology.uci.edu/clinical_surgicalhome.shtml)

I expect the transition to the Perioperative Surgical Home to occur more easily in university or HMO hospitals than in community hospitals. It will be easier for academic or HMO chairmen to assign new roles to salaried physicians than it will be for community hospitals to control the behavior of multiple private physicians.

Anesthesiologists were leaders in improving perioperative safety by the discovery and adoption of pulse oximetry and end-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring. Can anesthesiologists lead the way again by championing the adoption of Perioperative Surgical Home on a wide scale? Time will tell. Is the Perioperative Surgical Home an optimal way to take care of surgical patients before, during, and after surgeries? I believe it is, just as the Medical Director is a successful model of how an anesthesiologist can optimally lead an outpatient surgery center. Those lobbying for the Perioperative Surgical Home would be wise to examine the successful role of anesthesiologist Medical Directors who’ve led outpatient surgery centers for years. The stakes are high. As intraoperative care becomes safer and the role of nurse anesthesia in the United States threatens to expand, it’s imperative that physician anesthesiologists assert their expertise outside the operating room.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

TEN REASONS NURSE ANESTHETISTS (CRNAs) WILL BE A MAJOR FACTOR IN ANESTHESIA CARE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 5 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

 

My debut novel, The Doctor and Mr. Dylan features a nurse anesthetist in the starring role of Mr. Dylan. Nurse anesthetists have provided anesthesia care in the United States for nearly 150 years, and CRNs will be a major factor in the future.

41wlRoWITkL

In the beginning, anesthesia care for surgical patients was often provided by trained nurses under the supervision of surgeons, until the establishment of anesthesiology as a medical specialty in the U.S. in the 20th century.

Here are 10 reasons why certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) will be a major factor in anesthesia care in the 21st century:

1. Rural America is dependent on CRNAs to staff surgery in small towns underserved by MD anesthesiologists. CRNAs are involved in providing anesthesia services to about one-quarter of the American population that resides in rural and frontier areas of this country. Despite a significant rise in the number of anesthesiologists in recent years, there is no evidence that they are attracted to practice in rural areas.
2. Obamacare will increase the demand for mid-level healthcare providers, e.g. nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurse anesthetists. These mid-level providers are perceived as a cheaper alternative to MD health care.
3. Seventeen states have opted out of the requirement for physician supervision of CRNA anesthetics. These states are Iowa, Nebraska, Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Kansas, North Dakota, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, California, Colorado, and Kentucky. In these states, it’s legal for a CRNA to give an anesthetic without a supervising anesthesiologist or surgeon.
4. For cost-saving reasons, hospital administrators will consider the lower hourly rate charged by CRNAs to be a saving over MD anesthesia care rendered by anesthesiologists alone.
5. Future trends such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Perioperative Surgical Home or bundled payments to Accountable Care Organizations will seek out the cheapest way to manage anesthetic populations. A likely economic model for a healthy patient population is the anesthesia care team, e.g. a 4:1 ratio of four CRNAs supervised by one MD anesthesiologist. This model can be used to staff four simultaneous surgeries on four healthy patients having simple surgical procedures. More complex procedures such as open-heart surgery, brain surgery, major vascular surgery, or emergency surgery will be best served by MD anesthesia care. Extremes of age (e.g. neonates or very old patients) and patients with significant medical comorbidities will be best served by MD anesthesia care.
6. Certain regions of the United States, particularly the South and the Midwest, are already entrenched with anesthesia care team models of 3:1 or 4:1 CRNA:MD staffing because of anesthesiologist preference. An MD anesthesiologist’s income can be augmented by supervising three or four operating rooms with multiple CRNAs simultaneously. These physicians will have little desire to rid themselves of nurse anesthetists and to personally do only one case at a time by themselves.
7. The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) presents a strong, well-funded lobby which promotes the continuing and increasing role of CRNAs in medical care in the United States.
8. The educational cost for a registered nurse to become a CRNA is significantly less than the cost of training a board-certified MD anesthesiologist. The median cost of a public CRNA program is $40,195 and the median cost of a private program is $60,941, with an overall median of $51,720.
9. A registered nurse can significantly increase their income by becoming a CRNA. A registered nurse with one year of intensive care unit or post-anesthesia care unit experience can become a CRNA with 2-3 years of CRNA schooling. The average yearly salary of a CRNA in America in 2011 was $156,642.
10. The increasing starring role of CRNAs in American fiction ☺. (See The Doctor and Mr. Dylan, below)

After perusing this list one might ask, are CRNAs and anesthesiologists equals?
No, they are not. Anesthesiologists are doctors, and their training of four years of medical school followed by a minimum of four years of anesthesia residency makes them specialists in all aspects of surgical medicine.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists’ STATEMENT ON THE ANESTHESIA CARE TEAM states “Anesthesiology is the practice of medicine including, but not limited to, preoperative patient evaluation, anesthetic planning, intraoperative and postoperative care and the management of systems and personnel that support these activities. In addition, anesthesiology includes perioperative consultation, the management of coexisting disease, the prevention and management of untoward perioperative patient conditions, the treatment of acute and chronic pain, and the practice of critical care medicine. This care is personally provided by or directed by the anesthesiologist.” (Approved by the ASA House of Delegates on October 26, 1982, and last amended on October 16, 2013)

Doctor J H Silber’s landmark study from the University of Pennsylvania documented that both 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue rates were lower when anesthesia care was supervised by anesthesiologists, as opposed to anesthesia care by unsupervised nurse anesthetists. This study has been widely discussed. The CRNA community dismissed the conclusions, citing that the Silber study was a retrospective study. In a Letter to the Editor published in Anesthesiology, Dr. Bruce Kleinman wrote regarding the Silber data, “this study could not and does not address the key issue: can CRNAs practice independently?”

I’m not a fan of CRNAs working alone without physician supervision. In both my expert witness practice and in the expert witness practice of my anesthesia colleagues, we find multiple adverse outcomes related to acute anesthetic care carried out by non-anesthesiologists.

CRNAs will play a significant role in American healthcare in the future. That significant role will be best played with an MD anesthesiologist at their right hand.

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

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*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

OBAMACARE AND ANESTHESIA

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Key questions in our specialty in 2014 related to Obamacare and anesthesia. This article was originally published in 2014, when Barack Obama was the President of the United States. A key question in our specialty at that time was “How will ObamaCare affect anesthesiology?” The following essay represents my thoughts as of 2014, prior to the Trump presidency.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but based on what I’ve read, what I’ve observed, and what I’m hearing from other physicians, these are my predictions on how ObamaCare will change anesthesia practice in the United States:

  1. There will be more patients waiting for surgery. Millions of new patients will have ObamaCare cards and coverage. A flawed premise of ObamaCare is that a system can cover more patients and yet spend less money.
  2. Reimbursement rates will be lower. How many anesthesiologists will sign up for Medicaid or Medicare-equivalent rates to care for patients? Large organizations such as university hospitals, Kaiser, Sutter, and other HMO-types will likely sign up for the best rate they can negotiate. As a result, their physicians will have increased patient numbers and lower reimbursement for their time. The insurance plans that patients purchase will have higher deductibles, and most patients will have to pay more out of pocket for their surgery and anesthesia. This will lead to patients delaying surgery, and shopping around to find the best value for their healthcare dollar.
  3. Less old anesthesiologists. Older anesthesiologists will retire early rather than work for markedly reduced pay.
  4. Less young anesthesiologists. The pipeline of new, young anesthesiologists will slow. Young men and women are unlikely to sign up for 4 years of medical school,  4 – 6 years of residency and fellowship, and an average of $150,000 of student debt if their income incentives are severely cut by ObamaCare.
  5. More certified nurse anesthetists (CRNAs). It seems apparent that ObamaCare is interested in employing cheaper providers of medical services. CRNAs will command lower salaries than anesthesiologists. The premise to be tested is whether CRNAs can provide the same care for less money. Expect to see wider use of anesthesia care teams and of independent CRNA practice. Expect the overall quality of anesthesia care to change as more CRNAs and less M.D.’s are employed.
  6. A two-tiered system. Anesthesiologists who have a choice will not sign up for reduced ObamaCare rates of reimbursement. Surgeons who have a choice will not sign up for reduced ObamaCare reimbursement. Expect a second tier of private pay medical care to exist, where patients will choose non-ObamaCare M.D.’s of their choice, and will pay these physicians whatever the physicians charge. This tier will provide higher service and shorter waiting times before surgery is performed. This tier will likely be populated by some of the finest surgeons–surgeons are unwilling to work for decreased wages. A subset of anesthesiologists will work in this upper tier of medical care, and these anesthesiologists will earn higher wages as a result.
  7. Will the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model stumble as the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) model did in the 1990’s? ObamaCare provides for the existence of ACO’s, which are hospital-physician entities designed to provide comprehensive health care to patients in return for bundled payments. In this model the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and the hospital (i.e. nurses, pharmacy, and the medical device industry) will divide up the bundled surgical payment. In this model it’s essential that an anesthesiologist leader has a strong presence at the negotiating table. A worrisome issue with the ACO model, as it was with the HMO model, is the flow of money. Physicians will no longer be working for their patients, but will be working for the ACO. The  primary incentive will be to be paid by the ACO, rather than to provide the best care possible.
  8. Anesthesia leadership skills will change. The physician leader of each anesthesia group must be a powerful and effective politician and economic strategist. These traits are not taught during anesthesia residency, and these traits have nothing to do with being an outstanding clinician.
  9. What about the Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH)? The American Society of Anesthesiologists is proposing the model of the PSH, in which anesthesiologists will assume leadership roles managing patient care in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative arenas. This is a desirable goal for our specialty. No physician is better equipped than an anesthesiologist to supervise patients safely through the perioperative period with the highest standards of quality and cost-control. The Perioperative Surgical Home is designed to work with the model of the Accountable Care Organization. How these systems of the Perioperative Surgical Home and the Accountable Care Organization will evolve remains to be seen. It will be the role for individual anesthesia physician leaders in each hospital to seize the new opportunities.  Rank and file anesthesiologists will likely follow their leadership.

10. Consolidation of anesthesia groups. Small anesthesia groups will likely merge into bigger groups in an effort dominate a clinical census, and therefore to negotiate higher reimbursement rates. In November, 2013, the 100-physician Medical Anesthesia Consultants Medical Group, Inc, of San Ramon, California was acquired by Sheridan Healthcare Inc, a 2,500-physician services company based in Florida. Per Sheridan’s CEO, John Carlyle, the acquisition “provides a platform that will accelerate our expansion in the California marketplace.” This was the largest merger in Northern California anesthesia history.

11. Requirement of more anesthesia clinical metrics. Government and insurance payors will require more metrics to document that the provided clinical care was excellence. A typical required metric may be a high percentage of patients who received preoperative antibiotics prior to incision, or a low percentage of patients free from postoperative nausea and vomiting. Each anesthesia groups will need to establish computerized data-capturing systems to present this information to payors. The effort to tabulate these metrics will be another incentive for anesthesia groups to merge into larger clinical entities.

In summary:  More patients, more cases, less money, more bureaucracy, less money, more CRNA providers, and less money. These are the challenges ObamaCare presents to anesthesiologists. Stay tuned. Legions of patients with ObamaCare cards will be knocking on hospital doors. The government is expecting enough anesthesiologists to sign up for ObamaCare contracts to make the new system successful. It’s impossible to tell what behaviors ObamaCare will incentivize. Each anesthesiologist has the benefit of 25+ years of education, and each anesthesiologist will make intelligent choices regarding their career and their time.

Bob Dylan once sang, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more.”

Time will tell if ObamaCare is Maggie’s Farm for physicians.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

*
*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

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Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

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