Opinion Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Anesthesiol. Jul 20, 2019; 8(3): 19-24
Published online Jul 20, 2019. doi: 10.5313/wja.v8.i3.19
Healthcare delivery cost and anesthesiologists: Time to have a greater role and responsibility
Habib Md Reazaul Karim
Habib Md Reazaul Karim, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Raipur 492099, India
Author contributions: Karim HMR performed the literature search, manuscript preparation, and editing.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Habib Md Reazaul Karim, MBBS, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Great Eastern Road, Raipur 492099, India. drhabibkarim@gmail.com
Telephone: +91-96-12372585
Received: January 9, 2019
Peer-review started: January 9, 2019
First decision: April 11, 2019
Revised: April 16, 2019
Accepted: June 17, 2019
Article in press: June 18, 2019
Published online: July 20, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: Health care costs are escalating worldwide, affecting both governments and households. The need for surgery and interventional procedures are also steadily increasing. This has led to the increased requirement of clinical services from anesthesiologists. Therefore, anesthesiologists can also play an important role in cost containment. Two of the significant areas where cost reduction is possible are preoperative tests and the use of low and minimal flow anesthesia. However, a few factors may act as a hindrance to clinical practice. This opinion review paper discusses these issues and the possible remedial steps for providing cost-effective, quality healthcare, especially in developing countries.