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News May 10, 2024

ASA Launches National Media Initiative to Support Safe Anesthesia Care for Veterans

Recently, the American Society of Anesthesiologist initiated a national media campaign to build support for preserving safe, high quality anesthesia care in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. The initiative, featuring ASA President Ron Harter, MD and ASA member and Veteran Bridget Bush, MD, engaged media outlets from the across the United States to educate the public, including Veterans, to the risks of a proposal by the VA Office of Nursing Services to dismantle the physician-nurse team-based model of care. The VA nurses’ proposal seeks to remove anesthesiologists from the anesthesia team and move VA standards to a nationwide Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) only model of anesthesia care.

The media initiative is part of a broad multi-pronged campaign, known as Safe VA Care, directed at defeating the VA nurses’ proposal - a proposal that needlessly puts the health and lives of Veterans at risk. Veterans have earned and deserve the highest standards of health care. Next week, as a second phase of the Safe VA Care campaign, over 500 ASA members will travel to Washington, DC to directly lobby the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to support safe anesthesia care standards for Veterans.

ASA’s Safe VA Care initiatives was covered in the following media outlets (links posted where available):      

 

Date of last update: May 16, 2024