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Dollars and Sense: The Business of Pediatric Surgery.

Authors :: Skarda DE
Danko ME
Glick RD
Guner YS
Le HD
Rich BS
Robertson DJ
Short SS
Weiss RG
Van Arendonk KJ
Raval MV
Source :: The Journal of surgical research [J Surg Res] 2023 May; Vol. 285, pp. 220-228. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jan 25.
Publication Year :: 2023
Abstract: Introduction: This study evaluated North American pediatric surgeons' opinions and knowledge of business and economics in medicine and their perceptions of trends in their healthcare delivery environment.<br />Methods: We conducted an elective online survey of 1119 American Pediatric Surgical Association members. Over 8 mo, we iteratively developed the survey focused on four areas: opinion, knowledge, current practice environment, and trends in practice environment over the past 5 y.<br />Results: We received 227 (20.3%) complete surveys from pediatric surgeons. One hundred ninety four (85.5%) perceive healthcare as a business and most (85.9%) believe healthcare decisions may affect patients' out-of-pocket expenses. More than half (51.1%) of surgeons believe it has become more challenging to perform emergent cases and most believe staff quality has decreased for elective (56.4%) and emergent (63.0%) cases over the past 5 y.<br />Conclusions: Pediatric surgeons recognize that medicine is a business and have concerns regarding the decreasing quality of operating room staff and the increasing difficulty providing surgical care over the last 5 y.<br /> (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)