Growth of anesthesia outside the OR

Editor's Note

Nonoperating room anesthesia (NORA) is a growing component of anesthesiology practice, this study finds.

The proportion of NORA cases overall increased from 28.3% in 2010 to 35.9% in 2014, and the mean age of NORA patients increased significantly faster than OR patients.

Compared with OR cases, more NORA cases were started after normal working hours (9.9% vs 16.7%). Colonoscopy was the most common procedure that required NORA.

Data collected by the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry in the coming years will further characterize the trends identified in this study, the authors say.

BACKGROUND: Although previous publications suggest an increasing demand and volume of nonoperating room anesthesia (NORA) cases in the United States, there is little factual information on either volume or characteristics of NORA cases at a national level. Our goal was to assess the available dat...