Advanced Practice Provider Utilization in Acute Care Surgery: A National Survey of the Society of Acute Care Surgery Division Chiefs.
Nearly all acute care surgery programs report daytime advanced practice provider coverage.
Advanced Practice Provider Utilization in Acute Care Surgery: A National Survey of the Society of Acute Care Surgery Division Chiefs.
Advanced practice providers (advanced practice providers) have important roles in trauma, surgical critical care (surgical critical care), and emergency general surgery (emergency general surgery), but their specific utilization, staffing patterns, and clinical responsibilities remain poorly characterized.
This study aims to assess advanced practice providers integration within US acute care surgery (acute care surgery) programs.
A survey was distributed to division chiefs (12/2024) via the Society of acute care surgery chiefs, assessing advanced practice providers staffing, service coverage, procedures performed, patient-to-advanced practice providers ratios, onboarding, and educational support.
daytime coverage is now nearly universal across acute care surgery programs
57 of 74 (77%) acute care surgery division chiefs responded, predominantly from university (63%), level-I centers (81%).
The median number of advanced practice providers per center was 14, with most assigned to trauma (n = 5, interquartile range [IQR], 3-9), surgical critical care (n = 3, IQR, 0-7), then emergency general surgery (n = 2, IQR, 0-4).
The role of advanced practice providers in acute care surgery continues to expand with nearly all centers surveyed having daytime advanced practice providers coverage. However, less than half had nighttime coverage.
Understanding limitations to night staffing and future efforts to define optimal advanced practice providers integration, training, intraoperative support, and workload may improve standardization, efficiency, and care of our injured patients.