A recent study comparing different anesthesia provider models for obstetrical patients finds no statistical difference in the outcomes of cases at hospitals that use CRNAs vs. those that only use anesthesiologists.
Researchers examined data on more than 1.4 million OB patients from 369 hospitals in six states and found that the rate of complications from anesthesia in OB cases were roughly the same in anesthesiologist-only facilities (0.27 percent) and CRNA-only facilities (0.23 percent). Hospitals with other anesthesia models had OB anesthesia complication rates that varied between 0.24 percent and 0.37 percent, "with none statistically different from the anesthesiologist-only hospitals," the study shows.
The study, conducted by Jack Needleman, PhD, MS, of the UCLA School of Public Health, and Ann Minnick, PhD, RN, FAAN, of the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, appears in the April 2009 issue of Health Services Research.
—Irene Tsikitas
