With the creation of the Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH), ASA has our specialty poised to take advantage of physician anesthesiologists’ diverse and unique training. The PSH has definitively established that the practice of anesthesiology encompasses the entire perioperative arena.1 The concept is not novel because physician anesthesiologists have always fulfilled this role to varying degrees. The current regulatory and legislative environment, which emphasizes quality of care and reduction in health care costs, strives to promote consistency across all practices caring for patients. Without consistency, it is difficult to demonstrate improvement when it occurs. With ongoing changes in health care, we are now creating an environment in which outcome studies are becoming part of all practices.
To achieve consistency in health care, fewer teams, transitions and handoffs are needed, effectively breaking down silos that exist. The O.R. is one of the highest-cost areas in any hospital, and physician anesthesiologists are...