In a new white paper, anesthesia management services provider North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA) examines how workplace culture impacts anesthesia staffing and performance.
In a press release, NAPA states, “When an anesthesiology department struggles with turnover, staffing instability, or inconsistent results, healthcare leaders often respond with familiar operational solutions: revise the schedule, adjust staffing ratios, change coverage models, or recruit more clinicians. Those interventions may be necessary. But when the problems reoccur, the issue may be deeper than operations.”
The white paper, “When Operations Struggle, Culture Is Often a Root Cause,” urges perioperative leaders to “consider the relationship between leadership, culture, and the way clinicians work together.”
NAPA Chief Clinical Officer Clavio Ascari, MD, states that “operational problems are highly visible, so naturally that is where leaders tend to focus first. But turnover, disengagement, and inconsistent performance may signal something happening beneath the operating model. If leaders only address the symptom, the same challenges are likely to return.”
Dr. Ascari argues that anesthesiology departments “rarely struggle because they lack processes.” The real focus, he says, should be on whether “the processes are supported by a culture that creates trust, accountability, and ownership of outcomes… Culture isn’t separate from performance. It’s what makes performance sustainable.”
In the white paper, NAPA states that “cultural problems frequently present themselves as operational ones, such as persistent turnover, growing reliance on locums, clinicians who approach their role as ‘clock in, clock out,’ and surgeons and nursing teams who no longer view anesthesiology as a responsive, integrated partner. Individually, each can trigger an operational response. Taken together, they may point to a broader breakdown in how the department is led and how the team functions.”
The anesthesia firm states that the question perioperative leaders should ask is “not simply ‘How do we fix our operations?’ but ‘What is happening within the culture of this department?’ Seemingly routine leadership choices—such as scheduling, clinician engagement, or communication with surgical stakeholders—can either strengthen or weaken culture over time. Even something as operational as a schedule can be an expression of culture. When schedules are perceived as inconsistent or inequitable, dissatisfaction can grow. When they are transparent, fair, and informed by clinician input, they can reinforce respect and collective ownership.”
NAPA adds that “traditional top-down approaches may fall short in complex anesthesiology environments. Instead, collaborative dyad leadership structures can help create stronger clinician engagement, representation, and shared accountability.”
