Newsletter article
Ask the Experts: Anesthesia Staffing for Bronchoscopy and Other Non-Operating Room Procedures to Meet Patient Access Targets
Association of Anesthesia Clinical Directors Newsletter
Spring 2026
Abstract
Many anesthesia departments provide services in non-operating room anesthesia (NORA) locations such as bronchoscopy suites, endoscopy units, and diagnostic imaging areas. Unlike operating rooms, these procedural areas often have variable physician availability and are geographically dispersed. Consequently, anesthesia departments are often asked to provide staffing for procedural services that do not operate continuously throughout the week. For example, a pulmonary service may request anesthesia support for two bronchoscopy rooms operating five days per week. However, pulmonologists performing bronchoscopies often also maintain outpatient clinics, cover other hospitals, or rotate through other clinical responsibilities. As a result, procedural demand fluctuates. The operational question for anesthesia leadership becomes: How much anesthesia staffing capacity should be planned so that pulmonologists can schedule bronchoscopy procedures within a target patient access interval (i.e., within two weeks)? This differs from traditional operating room efficiency problems because the primary objective is to provide proceduralists with access to anesthesia care within a defined number of days, rather than maximizing room utilization. To identify relevant literature on scheduling and staffing for anesthesia services outside the operating room, searches were conducted in Scopus on March 3, 2026. The primary search focused on scheduling terminology appearing in article titles:
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Ask the Experts: Anesthesia Staffing for Bronchoscopy and Other Non-Operating Room Procedures to Meet Patient Access Targets
- Creators
- Patrick Hussey (Author) - University of Alabama at BirminghamFranklin Dexter (Author) - University of Iowa, Anesthesia
- Resource Type
- Newsletter article
- Publication Details
- Association of Anesthesia Clinical Directors Newsletter
- Number of pages
- 4 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2026 Patrick Hussey and Franklin Dexter
- Language
- English
- Date published season
- Spring 2026
- Date published
- 2026
- Academic Unit
- Anesthesia
- Record Identifier
- 9985143768502771
Metrics
1 File views/ downloads
2 Record Views