Somnia Anesthesia Blog

You’ve heard the statistic before: according to various estimates, 60-70% of all hospital revenue is generated by the operating room. Thus, it’s a given that the need for surgeries to be conducted as scheduled is a very high priority for hospital administrators.

At its core, the accountable care organization (ACO) healthcare model is designed to provide high-quality patient care at the best possible cost. With its introduction in 2010’s healthcare reform, the concept spurred a sweeping number of changes to hospital operations.

Anyone with a smartphone can tell you the thousands – literally – of apps available that range in usefulness from very helpful to downright gratuitous. In the ever-expanding digital tsotchke landscape that is an app store, you’d be hard-pressed to find a program hospital administrators would find useful enough to gauge performance of their anesthesia group. 

The drug shortage crisis in the United States is no mystery. For the past six years, the problem has become an increasingly difficult situation to address, culminating last year with record levels of shortages. Spurred by a variety of manufacturing issues – notably cutbacks in production and expiration of patents – a lack of proper medication is reaching epidemic levels at some healthcare facilities. 

Anesthesia staffing models are a chief concern of many hospital executives, leading to a number of questions about how to best ensure maximum efficiency of the operating room. For example:

Somnia Anesthesia’s first webinar of 2012, “How the Anesthesia Care Team Model Can Contribute to Clinical Quality Excellence in Your OR,” was extremely well attended and generated a large number of questions that could not be addressed during the 15-minute long Q&A session.

A recent study released in the March issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia indicated that more than 80% of anesthesiologists have been involved in an adverse event – defined as causing death or injury – to a patient during surgery. 

With the first quarter of 2012 nearly complete, the key healthcare issues and trends that will impact anesthesiology this year are quite clear. And much like last year, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will be a marquee concern.   

If you’re thinking about a career in anesthesiology, be prepared to devote years – 12 to be exact – before you can take the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) board-certification examination.  Because the industry-standard of eight years of schooling and four years of formal training (i.e. residency) for exam qualification makes the process a long, arduous one, there is a shortage of MDs that has exacerbated the increasing demand for anesthesia services nationwide. 

Next time you’re at the movies and are deciding between Twizzlers and Sno Caps, you may want to choose Twizzlers, especially if you have surgery planned in the near future.