Non-OR anesthesia care growing in US

Editor's Note

Non-OR anesthesia (NORA) is a growing component of anesthesiology practice in the US, this study finds.

The proportion of NORA cases overall increased from 28.3% in 2010 to 35.9% in 2014, and the proportion of NORA outpatient cases increased from 69.7% to 73.3%. Colonoscopy was the most common procedure that required NORA.

Multivariate analysis found that the mean age of NORA patients increased significantly faster compared with OR patients at 1.06 years of age per year of study period. The annual increase in American Society of Anesthesia physical status of NORA patients was small in magnitude, but statistically significant.

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