Kansas, don’t make other states’ mistake with anesthesiologist assistants | Opinion
This week, we recognize the more than 68,000 certified registered nurse anesthetists or CRNAs across the United States, including approximately 1,000 in Kansas. These professionals ensure that surgeries, childbirth, pain management and emergency procedures can be performed safely and economically. They are not a peripheral part of health care in the U.S. — they are the heart of anesthesia in our country.
From the busiest urban hospitals to the most remote rural facilities, expert CRNAs are present where patients need them most. In our nation’s armed forces, CRNAs practice independently and are trusted to deliver anesthesia in some of the most challenging environments in the world. Within the Veterans Health Administration, CRNAs are relied upon as essential to care for those who have served our country. In rural America, they are often the sole anesthesia providers, making it possible for community hospitals to keep their doors open and for patients to have surgeries performed close to home.
Even in large academic and urban medical centers where supervision models are more common, CRNAs remain the primary hands-on clinicians of anesthesia. They are the professionals at the head of the bed — inducing anesthesia, managing patients’ physiology, responding to complications and ensuring safe recovery. This is highly skilled, high-stakes work, and CRNAs perform it with exceptional competence every day, and have done so for over 150 years.
As we recognize National CRNA Week, it is important to also acknowledge a significant threat to the safe, effective and cost-conscious models of anesthesia care that have long served Kansas well. Policymakers in the Legislature are now considering House Bill 2368, legislation to license anesthesiologist assistants, a provider type currently licensed in only 18 states. Anesthesiologist assistants are so limited in practice capacity that they do not practice in the U.S. armed forces, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Public Health Service or the Indian Health Service — an absence that rightfully raises serious questions about their equivalence to any other anesthesia provider and whether they are appropriate for any state, especially Kansas.
Critically, anesthesiologist assistants are not independent clinicians. They must function under an anesthesiologist’s medical direction. This dependence confines them to the most expensive anesthesia delivery models while diverting anesthesiologists away from hands-on patient care and into mandatory supervisory roles, thereby increasing costs when Americans struggle to afford health care already. The experience of Florida and Georgia underscores these concerns: Despite licensing assistants for more than two decades and employing over half of them nationwide, both states remain among the worst in the country for anesthesia provider availability per capita, ranking 29th and 46th in providers per capita respectively, according to American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology data.
Moreover, licensing anesthesiologist assistants threatens Kansas’ anesthesia workforce pipeline. Assistants cannot train or precept student registered nurse anesthetists or physician residents, meaning every assistant placed into a hospital replaces a clinician who can train the next generation of independent providers. In a state where efficient anesthesia care depends on independently practicing CRNAs and anesthesiologists, diverting cases and training sites away from those expert providers directly undermines future workforce supply. For Kansas patients and communities, the bottom line is clear: Oppose H.B. 2368 and keep costly and inefficient anesthesia out of Kansas.
National CRNA Week is a reminder of what already works in American health care. CRNAs, physician anesthesiologists and the broader surgical team ensure that patients receive safe, timely and accessible anesthesia every day. Our state should build on that proven foundation — one that truly serves patients, supports our hospitals and respects the full expertise of independent anesthesia professionals.
Jacob Deeds has practiced anesthesia independently in Afghanistan, Honduras, Indonesia and across the U.S. as a lieutenant colonel in the Army. He currently practices in Wichita and is the president of the Kansas Association of Nurse Anesthetists, a 501(c)(6) business league.