Anesthesiology 2030: What Does the Future Hold for Critical Care Medicine?

While critical care medicine has been a recognized and valuable subspeciality of anesthesiology for many years and the scope of practice has expanded, in many respects the recent COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated its transformation. Until recently, and for many practicing critical care anesthesiologists, care focused on addressing acute patient decompensation. Over the past few years, and magnified by the pandemic, care has transitioned to include broader roles in the continuum of illness, whether related to a patient with sepsis, a cardiac surgery patient, neurosurgical patient, or other ICU patient population. In fact, for some critical care anesthesiologists, care is no longer restricted to a specific inpatient environment. Critical care not only includes managing patients across the continuum of inpatient care, but must also consider: roles related to prehospital care and population health, implications of social determinants of health and access to services, short- and long-term outcomes of critical illness, integration...