Eight Ways CRNAs Provide Safe and Effective Anesthesia Care for Every Patient

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) will be educating the public about the role CRNAs here in Atchison as “experts you can trust, care you can count on” during the 22nd annual National CRNA Week celebration taking place January 24-30, 2021.

This year’s emphasis is recognizing the heroic work of CRNAs and SRNAs, the power of the Atchison community, and looking forward to a future of providing safe and effective anesthesia care to all patients. Eight ways CRNAs make a difference every day include:

1. Safety First: CRNAs are highly trained anesthesia professionals who safely administer approximately 49 million anesthetics to patients each year in the United States, according to the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) 2019 Member Practice Profile Survey. At Amberwell Health, Atchison, CRNAs independently deliver over 75% of the anesthetics.
2. Rural America: Millions of rural Americans count on CRNAs for convenient, safe, cost-effective anesthesia care. As the sole anesthesia providers in most rural hospitals, CRNAs enable patients to receive obstetrical, surgical, pain management and trauma stabilization services without traveling long distances to urban medical facilities. Furthermore, our anesthesia practice rivals those in the larger metropolitan areas to include pain management, ultrasound guided peripheral nerve blocks, cryoanalgesia, multimodal pain management and opioid free anesthesia.
3. Military Presence: From the front lines to the VA hospitals, CRNAs have proudly and courageously provided anesthesia care to enlisted men and women, officers, and veterans in all branches of the military, from World War I to the present. Nurses first provided anesthesia to wounded soldiers during the Civil War.
4. Practice Settings: CRNAs practice in every setting in which anesthesia is delivered: traditional hospital surgical suites and obstetrical delivery rooms; critical access hospitals; ambulatory surgical centers; the offices of dentists, podiatrists, ophthalmologists, plastic surgeons and pain management specialists; and more. As highly educated and skilled anesthesia experts, CRNAs stay with patients throughout their procedure to ensure their comfort and safety. For CRNAs, providing patient-centered, holistic pain management and anesthesia care is both their profession and their passion.
5. Cost-Efficiency: Managed care plans recognize CRNAs for providing high-quality anesthesia care with reduced expense to patients and insurance companies. The cost-efficiency of CRNAs helps control escalating healthcare costs.
6. Nurse Anesthetists put the “care” in MEDICARE: For senior citizens, any operation can be a traumatic experience. CRNAs have a long history of ensuring patient safety and comfort with hands-on, watchful anesthesia care. That is why every year millions of Medicare patients depend on CRNAs to keep them safe and sound.
7. Helping expectant mother feel only joy: Managing the pain of delivery is a concern shared by many expectant mothers. When it comes to obstetric pain relief, you have options, and your CRNA is happy to explain them to you-just as we do for millions of women in labor each year.
8. COVID-19 Response: CRNAs contribute at high levels to the development and implementation of emergency preparedness programs, policies and procedures, and interdisciplinary team communication processes to efficiently allocate resources and provide care during the COVID-19 pandemic. CRNAs’ expertise in rapid systems assessment, vascular volume resuscitation, airway management, ventilatory support, team coordination, and resource management is vital to supporting Amberwell Health efforts to respond to this unprecedented emergency