Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
FORT WAYNE – Parkview’s orthopedics hospital will soon allow anesthesiologists to leave the operating room during surgery, leaving a patient in the care of a certified registered nurse anesthetist, an official confirmed Wednesday.
Ray Kusisto, CEO of Orthopaedics Northeast, said anesthesiologists will personally put patients to sleep and wake them up but in between will direct patient care administered by a nurse anesthetist. At least for the first four months, the hospital budget allows each anesthesiologist to oversee no more than two nurse anesthetists at one time.
Physicians at Orthopaedics Northeast, or ONE, bought a 40 percent stake in the hospital in 2007.
ONE has successfully used certified registered nurse anesthetists at its surgery center for 15 years, Kusisto said. The center handles about 20 surgeries every weekday. They include orthopedic procedures that don’t require an overnight hospital stay, including many shoulder, hand, wrist, elbow and neck surgeries. Doctors also do arthroscopic knee surgery there but don’t replace knee joints.
"They are extremely well-educated and trained and licensed," Kusisto said of the nurse anesthetists employed by his practice. "Patients really like the team care because they get two providers instead of one."
Patients meet both providers before surgery, he said.
Although two medical professionals oversee each patient’s anesthesia, patients are charged the same amount as if they received care from only an anesthesiologist, Kusisto said. Insurance companies negotiate with providers to pay a set price for anesthesia services, he said. That amount does not increase when a nurse anesthetist is added to the equation.
The same anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists who now work in ONE’s surgery center will staff the Orthopaedic Hospital at Parkview North, Kusisto said.
Other Parkview hospitals don’t use nurse anesthetists, and neither do hospitals in the Lutheran Health Network.
Joe Dorko, Lutheran Hospital’s CEO, said the anesthesiologists who work with Lutheran haven’t adopted the practice.
"The choice to use ‘physician extenders’ has always been an individual physician’s decision," Dorko said in an e-mail.
For example, some doctors use nurse practitioners and physicians assistants in their offices or to assist in the hospital.
In the same way, an anesthesiologist might choose to hire a nurse anesthetist, Dorko said.
Kusisto also described the use of nurse practitioners as driven by physician preference. But, he said, the practice has been embraced much more enthusiastically in other parts of the country. He estimated that in most places, a patient would have a 66 percent chance of being attended to by a nurse anesthetist during surgery.
"This is a very common thing," he said.
Although only orthopedics practices are using them in the Fort Wayne market, nurse anesthetists nationwide work during all types of operations, including heart and brain surgery, Kusisto said.
The American Society of Anesthesiologists responded to a request for comment by providing a link to its Web site, which stresses patient safety and lists nurse anesthetists among a team of providers who can offer "the optimal anesthesia experience for all patients."
Even so, Glenn Crowl has reservations.
"If it were my loved one, I’d want the best" care, he said. The 90-year-old Fort Wayne man equates the "best" with having an anesthesiologist in the room throughout the surgery.
If he were facing surgery, however, Crowl might not insist on the same level of care from the medical providers.
"I would talk to them, and get my courage up and then probably tell them to go ahead," he said.
