Solutions

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British Columbia faces critical problems with the shortage of anesthesiologists and inefficient use of vital health care dollars. The result is patients waiting longer to receive lower quality care that puts their safety at risk.

But these problems can be solved. Below you will find information about a number of solutions that can help fix the situation.

Reducing Wait Lists and Delivering Timely Care

We’d like you to hear more stories like this…

“Battling cancer was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life. Initially, the pain was almost unbearable. I am so thankful for the care I received from my anesthesiologist. My pain management plan made my life livable again.”

Patients need to know they will receive the best quality care in a timely fashion. Yet too many patients still endure excessive wait times before they receive the care they need.

This problem can be solved though. Our recommendations include:

More Out-of-OR Anesthesiologist Positions

Many patients rely on the care provided by an anesthesiologist outside the OR (Operating Room). This care includes:

Resuscitating the critically ill and injured.
Managing life support treatments.
Looking after patients’ pain management in the wards.
Sedating patients for painful radiology or cardiology procedures.
Helping women in labour.

Anesthesiologists play an essential role in the care of patients throughout the hospital.

Without an anesthesiologist available to provide care to patients outside the OR, costly inefficiencies occur – the OR is kept on hold while the anesthesiologist provides care elsewhere.

Under an agreement with BC’s anesthesiologists in 2010, the BC Government committed additional resources to meet the needs of labouring women for pain relief. Now, not only are women benefitting from better access to labour pain relief, but these Anesthesiologist resources have been used to provide over 20 “Out-Of-OR” positions throughout BC.

Adding more Out-of-OR anesthesiologist positions would mean providing more timely care for patients outside the OR, while also reducing the wait times of surgical patients.

Better Pain Management Services

Patients suffering from pain deserve an integrated approach to the care they receive that involves anesthesiologists, family physicians, nurses, and other health providers all working together.

A provincially-coordinated, multi-disciplinary system for pain management would provide all pain patients with exactly the level of care they need. Anesthesiologists and other care providers want the proper resources to meet the needs of their patients for timely pain management.

Higher Quality Care & Safer Patients

We’d like you to hear more stories like this…

“We were so thankful for the professional care we received when it was a matter of life and death. Not only did my anesthesiologist save both my daughter’s life and mine, she managed to keep me comfortable through the whole thing!”

Every patient deserves to receive the highest level of care and safety. The care anesthesiologists provide should be focused on a patient’s specific needs and should allow patients to move through the system smoothly.

To help improve the quality of care and level of safety, we recommend:

Better Access to Obstetric Anesthesiology Services

Pregnant mothers deserve access to the best care possible. This is particularly important for women with high-risk pregnancies. To achieve this, expectant mothers at all of BC’s tertiary obstetric units need around-the-clock access to dedicated obstetrical anesthesiology services.

These resources should be added at:

Royal Columbian Hospital
Surrey Memorial Hospital
Victoria General Hospital

Better Access to Training

Compared to the size of our population, UBC’s training program for new anesthesiologists has the fewest teaching faculty of any medical school in Canada. We have to provide training for future generations of anesthesiologists needed by patients in BC. We need to:

Immediately expand the number of anesthesiologist teaching faculty at UBC. These academic anesthesiologists are also needed to do the research that will make patients’ care safer in the future, and to make our health care system function better.

Wasting Fewer Tax Dollars

We’d like you to hear more stories like this…

“I’m so glad I didn’t have to wait for emergency surgery – there was an anesthesiologist available when I needed one and they had access to the information they needed about me. I don’t know if I would have been able to handle waiting in pain.”

To be sustainable, our health care system must have the right number and mix of health care professionals, and the resources they need to do their work.

Mismanagement of health care funding has worsened the problems in our system, especially the shortage of anesthesiologists.

To help fix this problem, we recommend:

Better Information Technology

Innovations in the technology anesthesiologists use to access and manage information would greatly improve the time it takes to care for patients, and would also assist anesthesiologists in making critical decisions. We should:

Implement the Perioperative Anesthesia Network for BC (PAN-BC), a widely supported idea created by anesthesiologists for a provincial electronic medical record system.
Use data generated from this system to guide future improvements to the efficiency of BC’s Operating Rooms.

Expand the Use of Anesthesia Assistants

Anesthesia Assistants are specially-trained physician assistants who provide valuable support to anesthesiologists. They improve patient care and save tax dollars. They have a 25-year track record in Canada that has proven their value to the health care system.

We should:

Train, hire, and retain more Anesthesia Assistants for patient care in BC.

Innovative Use of Health Resources

With so many services to provide, BC’s health care funding is stretched thin. That means that the way every dollar is spent has a real effect on patients.

Anesthesiologists have the experience and the understanding needed to design a system that best uses all of its valuable resources.

Anesthesiology-led pilot projects – such as St. Paul’s regional (nerve block) program – have generated up to 80% more care from each health care dollar, while receiving praise from satisfied patients.

Great solutions exist, and many would be easy to implement if anesthesiologists were given the influence to make them happen.

The Value of Recruitment

None of this will be possible without recruiting and retaining enough anesthesiologists to meet the needs of BC patients.

Instead of ignoring the current crisis, the BC government should see this as an opportunity to dedicate its efforts to make BC an attractive place for anesthesiologists to work, and to make the system function better.