Practical Considerations for Converting Operating Rooms and Post-anaesthesia Care Units into Intensive Care Units in the COVID-19 Pandemic - Experience from a Large Singapore Tertiary Hospital.

COVID-19 has spread globally, infecting and killing millions of people worldwide. The use of operating rooms (ORs) and the post-anaesthesia care unit (PACU) for intensive care is part of surge response planning. We aim to describe and discuss some of the practical considerations involved in a large tertiary hospital in Singapore.

Response and Operating Room Preparation for the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Perspective From the National Heart Centre in Singapore.

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a respiratory disease from a novel coronavirus that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, is now a public health emergency and pandemic. Singapore, as a major international transportation hub in Asia, has been one of the worst hit countries by the disease. With the advent of local transmission, the authors share their preparation and response planning for the operating room of the National Heart Centre Singapore, the largest cardiothoracic tertiary center in Singapore.

Achieving 100 percent compliance to perioperative antibiotic administration: a quality improvement initiative.

Introduction: Timely administration of prophylactic antibiotics within 60 minutes before surgical incision is important for reducing surgical site infections. This quality improvement initiative aimed to work towards achieving 100% compliance with perioperative antibiotic administration.

Methods: We examined the workflow in our Anaesthesia Information Management System (AIMS) and proposed interventions using cause-and-effect analysis of anonymised anaesthetic records from eligible surgical cases extracted from AIMS.

Evaluation of partial carbon dioxide rebreathing cardiac output measurement during thoracic surgery.

Objective: Noninvasive partial CO2 rebreathing (NICO; Novametrix Medical Systems, Inc, Wallingford, CT) is a relatively new alternative to thermodilution (TDCO) for measurement of cardiac output. This study compares the 2 methods during thoracic surgery and one-lung ventilation.

Design: A prospective, observational study.

Thoracoscopic thymectomy in a previous sternotomy.

A video assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) thymectomy is a viable alternative to conventional open thymectomy in myasthenia gravis (MG). A previous operation in the same anatomical region is generally considered a relative contraindication to any minimally invasive approach in the same area. Few cases of VATS on previously operated chests have been reported.

The effects of intravenous lidocaine on pain during injection of medium- and long-chain triglyceride propofol emulsions.

Propofol formulated in medium- and long-chain triglycerides (MCT/LCT) is thought to cause less pain on injection. In this study we sought to determine if adding lidocaine to propofol-MCT/LCT is more effective in decreasing pain compared with propofol-MCT/LCT alone or conventional propofol-lidocaine mixtures. Seventy-five patients were randomized into three groups.

The effects of remifentanil and thoracic epidural on oxygenation and pulmonary shunt fraction during one-lung ventilation.

Objective: To compare the effects of remifentanil and thoracic epidural analgesia on the hemodynamic changes and pulmonary shunt fraction during one-lung ventilation (OLV) for thoracotomy.

Design: Prospective, single crossover design.

Setting: Tertiary care hospital.

Predicting the depth of insertion of left-sided double-lumen endobronchial tubes.

Objective: To analyze the parameters that predict the depth of insertion of a left-sided double-lumen tube (DLT) and to assess the accuracy of the parameters after intubation.

Design: Prospective.

Setting: Tertiary-care hospital.