Bottleneck In the OR: How Anesthesiologist Shortages Threaten Surgical Care

Other institutions, he said, may be more affected because they are operated by private equity firms and run by leaders with MBA degrees who do not necessarily understand the importance of taking care of surgical needs efficiently. Others have just not recovered as quickly from COVID-19, and he noted that pediatric anesthesiologists are particularly in demand right now because of their scarcity.

Andrew J. Tompkins, MD, MBA, an otolaryngologist at Ohio ENT and Allergy Physicians in Columbus, Ohio, said the effect of COVID-19 on the shortage of anesthesiology providers, as documented in the literature, is borne out by the salaries that anesthesiology providers can now garner. “You need to offer CRNAs much more than what was typical prior to COVID-19,” he said. “Hospitals are having problems with staffing as well and are trying to put together a good package to get them to stay.”

He added that hospitals are particularly intent on snatching up nurse anesthesiologists and are offering to pay them a lot of money. “This may set the market rate much higher and create a shortfall elsewhere,” he said.

Dr. Tompkins said the shortage in anesthesiology providers points to the need to understand other workforces that affect our own. “We need other specialties to function, including audiology, so a shortage in any one area affects our ability to provide care,” he said.

“If you have a bottleneck somewhere else in anesthesia or audiology, then it means we aren’t fully able to provide care for patients in a timely manner,” he said. “The shortage in the anesthesia workforce highlights that we’re all interrelated and one workforce affects the other.”

As the chair of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Workforce and Socioeconomic Survey Task Force, Dr. Tompkins said the anesthesiology provider workforce shortage’s effect on otolaryngology is a good issue to study in the next iteration of the workforce survey.

As an otolaryngologist working at a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital, Jonathan Bock, MD, professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at Froedtert Hospital and Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, has seen the anesthesiology provider workforce shortage significantly impact the number of surgeries performed. “We have had to limit our operating cases at our VA hospital significantly, including dropping 25% of our current OR capacity,” he said, adding that posting elective cases has become increasingly challenging due to timing constraints.

“This has affected case volumes significantly and added increased challenges to the timely booking of urgent/emergent cases,” he said.