VA Ruling NOT Final- post comment by 1/13/17

[lifeline]

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Med students, residents & attendings- The fight is not over. Let's not give up on the home stretch! I browsed through 10 pages of comments & only found 3 comments in support of physician led anesthesia teams. All the other comments were from CRNAs and student nurse anesthetists.

Show your support for physician led anesthesia! Please get the word out to your classmates & colleagues!

 

[NEU305]

As an medical student, I'm trained to look for evidence and not make unsubstantiated claims. With that in mind, I decided to help Uncle Sam out today by searching USAJobs.gov in order to help find an answer to the burning "question of whether there are current anesthesia care access issues" in the VA Medical System. (Sure, it's not a perfect methodology, as there can still be access issues even when fully-staffed. If that's the case, however, that warrants a separate discussion than whether to allow unsupervised nurse practice to alleviate perceived anesthesiologist shortages). After a grueling 20 second search, I found that nationwide within the VA Healthcare System there were 14 available positions for full-time general anesthesiologists, 1 position for a part-time anesthesiologist, 1 ICU/cardiac anesthesiologist, 1 ICU-trained anesthesiologist, 1 pain management-trained anesthesiologist, and 2 Chiefs of Anesthesia (1). Of note, I also found 4 openings for CNRAs, 4 anesthesia techs, and 3 anesthesia PAs. Given that there's a mandatory open application period before these positions can legally be filled, we cannot know how many of these positions will be filled soon after the closing date and how many will remain unfilled. Regardless, having 14 openings across 1,233 health care facilities (168 VA Medical Centers and 1,053 outpatient sites) , does not appear to provide a significant care access issue (2).


In case anyone would like to verify my findings:
1 USAJobs.Gov Search Criteria- Keyword: anesthesiologist, Agency: Department Of Veterans Affairs, Sorted By: Job Title
2 http://www.va.gov/health/findcare.asp

 

[aneftp]

There is no "access" anesthesia VA staffing.

That's been the red herring with the AANA how to gain "independence" by preaching to the public "access" by letting them practice solo.

Like rural Colorado "access" ruling.

But there is hard data within the VA system there is the no access problem as evident by the publish final report.

For once there is data to refute AANA.

Remember if it's really an access issue. Why would the AANA block "access" for AA. Access is just a politically correct way for AANA to lobby for more independence.

 

[BLADEMDA]

As an medical student, I'm trained to look for evidence and not make unsubstantiated claims. With that in mind, I decided to help Uncle Sam out today by searching USAJobs.gov in order to help find an answer to the burning "question of whether there are current anesthesia care access issues" in the VA Medical System. (Sure, it's not a perfect methodology, as there can still be access issues even when fully-staffed. If that's the case, however, that warrants a separate discussion than whether to allow unsupervised nurse practice to alleviate perceived anesthesiologist shortages). After a grueling 20 second search, I found that nationwide within the VA Healthcare System there were 14 available positions for full-time general anesthesiologists, 1 position for a part-time anesthesiologist, 1 ICU/cardiac anesthesiologist, 1 ICU-trained anesthesiologist, 1 pain management-trained anesthesiologist, and 2 Chiefs of Anesthesia (1). Of note, I also found 4 openings for CNRAs, 4 anesthesia techs, and 3 anesthesia PAs. Given that there's a mandatory open application period before these positions can legally be filled, we cannot know how many of these positions will be filled soon after the closing date and how many will remain unfilled. Regardless, having 14 openings across 1,233 health care facilities (168 VA Medical Centers and 1,053 outpatient sites) , does not appear to provide a significant care access issue (2).


In case anyone would like to verify my findings:
1 USAJobs.Gov Search Criteria- Keyword: anesthesiologist, Agency: Department Of Veterans Affairs, Sorted By: Job Title
2 http://www.va.gov/health/findcare.asp

You should post this on their comment section as proof that there is no access issue. The facts are the facts regardless of what the AANA propaganda puts out.

 

[NEU305]

You should post this on their comment section as proof that there is no access issue. The facts are the facts regardless of what the AANA propaganda puts out.

Thanks! I wholeheartedly agree. I submitted it earlier today with a bit more professional verbiage. If anyone else is interested, feel free to remove my sarcasm and submit it as well.

 

[Noyac]

Nice job everyone. Keep it up.

The AANA stance has shifted slightly. They are claiming that if granted independence then the anesthesiologists can do their cases and the midlevels can do their's. This in a sense would allow for more access to care and the ability to do more cases.

We need a rebuttal for this now as well.

I'm thinking of one. Share if you have an idea.

 

[NEU305]

Nice job everyone. Keep it up.

The AANA stance has shifted slightly. They are claiming that if granted independence then the anesthesiologists can do their cases and the midlevels can do their's. This in a sense would allow for more access to care and the ability to do more cases.

We need a rebuttal for this now as well.

I'm thinking of one. Share if you have an idea.

The thing is that shortages of anesthesiologists aren't, and to my knowledge have never been, a barrier to access of surgical or medical care. What rightfully caused the commotion in the news (and started this mess) was veterans literally dying on wait lists for endoscopies, colonoscopies, and other screenings. Granted I'm only an MS4, but I've never heard of surgical cases being significantly delayed (to the point of creating risk to patients) due to there not being enough anesthesiologists; however, I have met veterans who have had to wait entirely too long for PCP visits and these kinds of screenings (to the point of creating undue risk). Allowing NPs to chip in this arena seems to be reasonable, but there's no substance to the claim of anesthesia shortages. Really, with the current logistical limitations (OR space, OR staff, surgeons, surgery clinic, etc) there is no added ability to do more cases even if we quadruple the number of board-certified anesthesiologists at each VA.

 

[GA8314]

Does anyone have the link that the CRNA's were using to identify us?? The searchable by name link??? I want to do some "investigating" of my own so we are not blindsided like the prior comments which probably most of us did not know would be made public....

Thanks in advance.

 

[NEU305]

Does anyone have the link that the CRNA's were using to identify us?? The searchable by name link??? I want to do some "investigating" of my own so we are not blindsided like the prior comments which probably most of us did not know would be made public....

Thanks in advance.

Kind of hard to find, but this should work. As expected, selected comments are laughable. https://www.regulations.gov/docketB...VA-2016-VHA-0011&refD=VA-2016-VHA-0011-178740