2020 Volume 40 Issue 5 Pages 441-448
A shortage of anesthesiologists in Japan has become a serious problem in recent years. To counter this, perioperative team medical care has been promoted through measures including the introduction of training systems for nurse-specific procedures. In order to improve the quality of perioperative work, we conducted a questionnaire-based survey of the heads of anesthesiology at 20 hospitals in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan on the current status of perioperative team medical care at their facilities and their future expectations regarding such work. The responses showed 47% parts of perioperative work was expected to be delegated to medical personnel other than anesthesiologists. Training and assigning perianesthesia nurses takes time, so perioperative task-shifting should be promoted for preoperative and postoperative management tasks that can be performed even by considered general nurses and medical clerks.
