Introduction: Although Checklists (CL) for routine anesthesia cases have demonstrated their values in various studies, they have found little traction so far. While several reports have shown the benefit of CL preventing omissions prior to anesthesia induction, no investigation yet has scrutinized omissions during the post-induction phase immediately after intubation. This study evaluated the rate of omissions prior to and following the induction of non-emergent general anesthesia, as well as the impact of checklists on omission prevention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To describe the use of Lean in urology at Zuckerberg San Francisco General, a community safety-net and trauma hospital that serves as a major teaching site for the University of California San Francisco.
Methods: We examined our process improvement activities from 2016 to 2018. Our Lean Daily Management System (DMS) includes a 15-minute team huddle ("urology Lean work") of service residents, faculty, clinic and operating room nursing staff, and anesthesia liaisons.
Anaesth Crit Care Pain Med
February 2020
Checklists are recognised as powerful tools to prevent avoidable errors in high-reliability organisations. In healthcare, the perioperative area has been a leading field in the development of a wide range of checklists. However, clinical literature on this subject is still sparse and heterogeneous, producing results that are sometimes conflicting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The use of printed or electronic checklists and other cognitive aids has gained increasing interest from anesthesia providers and professional societies. While these aids are not currently considered standard of care, the perceptions of the clinician might have an impact on their adoption.
Objectives: We conducted a comprehensive survey to study the current opinions of anesthesia provider on the use of checklists and other cognitive aids.
Background: In an earlier study investigating the "can't ventilate/can't intubate" clinical scenario, induction of anesthesia with thiopental 5 mg/kg and succinylcholine 1.0 mg/kg was associated with a significant risk of hemoglobin desaturation. It appeared that succinylcholine-induced apnea was responsible for the prolonged apnea.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose Of Review: Patients receiving perioperative anticoagulation are a challenge for anesthesiologists when regional anesthesia would be a beneficial component of the anesthetic plan. Newly approved antithrombotic drugs maintain the need for updated review articles and recommendations.
Recent Findings: Due to the very low incidence of bleeding complications, guidelines are solely based on retrospective analyses of case reports and pharmacological considerations.
Studies on the toxic effects of muscle relaxants are difficult to design because of the need for mechanical ventilation and, consequently, concomitant administration of anaesthetic drugs which may influence the results. The following overview shows that muscle relaxants are weak toxic agents with regard to their teratogenicity, carcinogenicity and cytotoxic effects (including tissue- and organ-damaging effects). Moreover, this chapter presents other side-effects of muscle relaxants under the broad heading of toxicity: the succinylcholine-triggered cytotoxic effects on skeletal muscle cells with different aetiology, for example, or persistent muscle weakness after long-term administration of non-depolarizing muscle relaxants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: We surveyed current German practice in postoperative epidural analgesia (EA). Of 300 questionnaires sent anonymously, 147 (49%) were returned fully completed. A 24-h acute pain service (APS) was offered in 41% of German hospitals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: It is common experience that virus transmission, particularly transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is a principal concern of patients and physicians regarding blood transfusion (1). Many physicians are probably unaware that transfusion-transmitted HIV infection is approximately 50 to 100 times less likely to occur than transfusion error (2-4). This misconception may have been encouraged by the scarcity of reports on transfusion error relative to the tremendous public attention focused on HIV infection.
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