A Survey of Non-Monetary Institutional Infrastructural Support of Academic Anesthesia Departments in the United States

Steven H. Ginsberg, Jonathan Kraidin, Christopher Gallagher, Donald Hoover, Al Solina

Department of Anesthesia, SUNY at Stony Brook, School of Medicine, Stony Brook, New York, USA.
Department of Anesthesia, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, USA.
Department of Anesthesia, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, USA;.
Rutgers University Department of Statistics & Biostatistics, Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA..

DOI: 10.4236/ojanes.2013.35062                

Abstract

Financial pressure of multifactorial etiology promises to create new obstacles for academic anesthesia departments. Integrating the priorities of the academic and clinical mission of the anesthesia department, the medical school, and the university hospital will require that anesthesia departments operate with maximal operational efficiency. Maintenance or expansion of institutional infrastructural support of the university anesthesia department will be necessary to achieve operational efficiencies, and to ensure that the safety of our patients is in no way compromised by financial concerns. Previous studies have documented increasing need for monetary institutional supports of academic anesthesia departments [1]. The purpose of this study is to delineate non-monetary institutional support afforded to academic anesthesia departments by their University Hospitals. After IRB approval, we electronically solicited the response to a 63 question survey (43 of which were used for the present study) from all 133 chairpersons of academic anesthesia departments in the United States. The remaining 20 questions were unrelated to the topics presented in this manuscript. 62 responded electronically, for an overall response rate of 46.6%. This study establishes the current state of infrastructural support afforded to academic anesthesia departments in the United States.

Keywords

Non Monetary Support; Infrastructural Support; Anesthesia Sites

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	K. K. Tremper, S. J. Barker, S. Gelman, J. G. Reves, A. J. Saubermann, A. M. Shanks, M. L. V. H. Greenfield and S. T. Anderson, “A Demographic, Service, and Financial Survey of Anesthesia Training Programs in the United States,” Anesthesia & Analgesia, Vol. 96, No. 5, 2003, pp. 1432-1446.
[2]	American Society of Anesthesia Technologists & Technicians, “Position Statement for Anesthesia Technical Coverage,” 2006.