Alex Macario MD

Clinical Focus

• Anesthesia

Administrative Appointments

• Vice-Chairman for Education, Department of Anesthesia (2006 - present)
• Program Director, Anesthesiology Residency (2006 - present)
• Program Director, Management of Perioperative Services Fellowship (1996 - present)
• Editor, Anesthesiology News (1999 - present)
• Editor, Stanford Anesthesia News (Alumni Publication) (2001 - 2006)

Honors and Awards

• 1st place, Literature Prize, American Society of Anesthesiology Annual Meeting (2004)

Professional Education

• Board Certification: Anesthesia, American Board of Anesthesiology (1995)
• Fellowship: Stanford University Medical Center, CA (1995)
• Residency: SUMC - Graduate Medical Education, CA (1994)
• Internship: Graduate Hospital, PA (1991)
• Medical Education: University of Rochester Medical Center, NY (1990)

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

• Anesthesia
• Health Research and Policy

Web Site Links

• Personal Web site

Research Interests

Dr. Macario is interested in the economics of health care, in particular the tradeoffs between costs and outcomes for patients having surgery and anesthesia. Dr. Macario has completed internationally recognized studies on the management of the operating room suite, as well as pioneering work on the cost-effectiveness of drugs and devices. He is Founder and Director of a Postgraduate Fellowship for physicians interested in applying quantitative tools to solve health services research questions.

Dr. Macario's research team's current projects include:
1. Economics of external cephalic version for breech presentation
2. Anesthesiologists’ attitudes towards training and working part-time.
3. Clinical efficacy and economics of Radio-Frequency tagged surgical sponges so that patients don't go home with a retained foreign body
4. IV PCA vs. IM analgesia: why do some hospitals not offer IV PCA: a survey study of hospitals across the USA
5. Factors influencing physicians when deciding to prescribe a new drug to a patient.
6. International survey of management structures of OR suites
7. Can acute pain management of surgical patients pay for itself? How many anesthesiologists doing anesthesia for TKA in the OR would it take to support an FTE of an anesthesiologist doing all the pain management separately and billing for it.
8. Does Titration of Sevoflurane using the Physiometrix PSA4000 (PSI) in Elderly Patients undergoing Noncardiac Surgery after Beta-Adrenergic Block Improve Recovery?
9. Wastage of disposable surgical supplies/equipment, central lines, and drugs in the OR: can we do better?
10. Does having an induction room reduce costs overall in the OR suite? Economics of patient scheduling in a surgical suite where parallel processes are performed
11. Evolution of science of OR mgmt: when did it start, why, where? How did it evolve over time and what areas were investigated and why
12. Anesthesia resident education:...

Publications

• Adoption of anesthesia information management systems by academic departments in the United States. Egger Halbeis CB, Epstein RH, Macario A, Pearl RG, Grunwald Z "Anesth Analg" 2008 ; 4 (107) : 1323-9
• Treatment of 94 outpatients with chronic discogenic low back pain with the DRX9000: a retrospective chart review. Macario A, Richmond C, Auster M, Pergolizzi JV "Pain Pract" 2008 ; 1 (8) : 11-7
• The reuse of anesthesia breathing systems: another difference of opinion and practice between the United States and Europe. Egger Halbeis CB, Macario A, Brock-Utne JG "J Clin Anesth" 2008 ; 2 (20) : 81-3
• Are your operating rooms 'efficient'? Macario A, "OR Manager" 2007 ; 12 (23) : 16-8
• Staffing and case scheduling for anesthesia in geographically dispersed locations outside of operating rooms. Dexter F, Macario A, Cowen DS "Curr Opin Anaesthesiol" 2006 ; 4 (19) : 453-8