About

Anesthesia Assistants

The Anesthesia Assistant is a perioperative profession in Canada developed from a need to meet increasing demands on physician anesthesiologists. Departments utilizing anesthesia assistants within a team-based anesthetic care delivery model have been shown to have an enhanced safety climate, improved efficiency, increased access to surgical services, reduced post-operative care demands, and reduced overall hospital length of stay. ¹⁴⁷⁸ In Canada, anesthesia assistants work in anesthetic care teams under the direction of a supervising anesthesiologist and are the only non-physician professionals recognized to care for patients receiving anesthesia. ¹⁶

Roles and Responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities of anesthesia assistants in British Columbia follow the standards outlined in the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society’s (CAS) Guidelines to the Practice of Anesthesia and the Canadian Society of Respiratory Therapists (CSRT) National Competency Framework in Anesthesia Assistance (NCF AA). A detailed framework for the duties and expectations of BC’s anesthesia assistants can be found in the BCSAA’s Standard Roles and Responsibilities for Anesthesia Assistants.

Anesthesia and Anesthetic Care Teams

The Canadian model of anesthetic care delivery follows the CAS Guidelines to the Practice of Anesthesia which has been in place and regularly updated since 1975.⁵⁶ The term “anesthesiologist” is defined by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as “all medical practitioners with privileges to administer anesthetics”⁵. As such, anesthesia is exclusively provided by physician anesthesiologists in Canada.

In the decades since the establishment of the Canadian model of anesthetic delivery, several factors have resulted in increasing demands on surgical services. These increased demands include a general increase in complexity in surgical care, an increase in severity and prevalence of comorbidities, and advances in equipment, technology and pharmacotherapeutics.⁴ Due to these changes, the need for rapidly expanding surgical services has outpaced the ability to train and staff anesthesiologists.⁴ A 2006 report by the Operative Anesthesia Committee outlined the proposal of a team-based anesthetic care team model in Canada where anesthesiologists are aided in the delivery of anesthesia by delegating workload to anesthesia assistants.⁷ Initial analyses of the team-based model showed overwhelmingly positive responses for an enhanced safety climate and job satisfaction among anesthesiologists, surgeons, and anesthesia assistants, as well as significant cost savings.¹ The anesthetic care team model has since been endorsed by the CAS, British Columbia Anesthesiologists’ Society, and the B.C. Ministry of Health as a viable solution to enable anesthesiologists to keep up with the increased clinical loads from increased societal demands.²³⁴