As hospitals and ASCs continue to grapple with clinician burnout and staffing shortages, anesthesia leaders are rethinking long-standing compensation and scheduling models.
Megan Friedman, DO, chair and medical director at Los Angeles-based Pacific Coast Anesthesia Consultants, joined Becker’s to discuss how the biggest gains in clinician sustainability over the next year will come from flexible, demand-matched staffing paired with predictable schedules.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited lightly for clarity and length.
Question: What staffing model change will have the biggest impact on clinician sustainability in the next year?
Dr. Megan Friedman: The most impactful change will be flexible, demand-matched staffing models paired with hourly or hybrid compensation and predictable schedules. That means moving away from rigid production-only models and toward variable shift lengths aligned with real procedural demand.
It also means centralized flow coordination to dynamically deploy teams across sites. When hospitals and anesthesia leadership analyze patterns together, staffing becomes proactive instead of reactive.
Clinician sustainability isn’t just about pay — it’s about fairness, transparency and not asking providers to absorb inefficiencies. When anesthesiologists are compensated for their time and given predictable schedules, burnout drops, retention improves, and hospitals benefit from more stable clinical teams.
