Due to the worldwide focus on the opioid crisis, we continue to find ways to deliver opioid-sparing anesthesia when appropriate. This reduces the risk for future opioid abuse while controlling pain and enhancing rehabilitation and recovery.

While much of the anesthesia delivered by providers occurs in the operating and procedure suites where surgeries and procedures are typically performed, they also provide anesthesia-related services elsewhere in the hospital. Their services are needed in the Intensive Care Unit, the Emergency Department, and in the Mother-Baby Unit where labor epidural anesthesia and Cesarean deliveries are performed. Anesthesia may also be consulted to provide acute, non-surgical pain relief—such as rib fractures—for patients in the hospital. Another area of the hospital where anesthesia is used is in the Radiology Department where patients may require sedation for radiology-related procedures or for reducing anxiety.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, anesthesia providers had also become frontline heroes when patients suffering from respiratory failure due to COVID pneumonia required endotracheal intubation and ventilatory support.