California Healthline March 27, 2020
As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise, a group of anesthesiologists wants to convert America’s surgery centers into critical care units for infected patients.
Many of the country’s more than 5,000 outpatient surgery centers have closed or sharply cut back on the number of elective procedures they perform, to comply with requests from government agencies and professional societies. But those surgery centers have space and staff, as well as anesthesia machines that could be repurposed into ventilators — all of which could be especially crucial in hard-hit areas like New York.
“Half of the surgery centers in New York are not doing anything,” said Adam Schlifke, an anesthesiologist and clinical assistant professor at Stanford University in California, who...
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