Results of a survey of nurse anesthesia education programs: diversity, growth and regionalization

This survey was conducted in June of 1990. Questionnaires were sent to and data obtained from all civilian and military nurse anesthesia education programs. Programs were asked to provide the following information: type of conducting institution; the party responsible for the administrative costs of the program; name and location of the program's academic affiliation; the name, location, type and purpose of all clinical affiliations/sites; and distance from the conducting institution to the academic affiliation and to each clinical site. The conducting entities for civilian programs were as follows: hospital or medical center, 43 programs; academic institution, 15 programs; joint arrangement between a hospital and an academic institution, 10 programs; freestanding, 4 programs; other, 7 programs. For purposes of this survey, each branch of the military was considered to have a single program with multiple clinical sites. Two military programs identified their conducting entity as a joint arrangement between the respective branch of the military and an academic institution. The third program identified itself as freestanding with an academic affiliation. In all but seven programs, the administrative costs of the program are the responsibility of the conducting institution. The majority of programs (74%) have an academic affiliation and 68% of programs offer a graduate degree. Eighty percent of programs with an academic affiliation are located within 50 miles of the academic site. The greatest distance between a program and its academic affiliation is 350 miles. Programs reported having from 1-13 clinical sites (mean = 3.6 sites/program). Military programs, freestanding programs and programs conducted by an academic institution have the highest mean number of sites per program.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)