Safety of a Novel Obstructive Sleep Apnea Triage Tool for Postoperative Orthopedic Surgery Patients.

Purpose: The purpose of this quality improvement project is to provide a tool for effective and safe triage of postoperative patients in the postanesthesia care unit with known or suspected obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) at an academic orthopedic hospital in New York City.

Design: The structure of this project was observational after implementation of a novel OSA triage tool.

Methods: Results were reported from a single center experience in a hospital where there was no existing standard assessment tool consistently used to triage patients with either known or suspected OSA in the postoperative period.

Differences in Symptoms and Severity of Obstructive Sleep Apnea between Black and White Patients.

Prior work suggests that Black patients have more severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) upon clinical presentation. However, the extent to which this may reflect differences in symptoms or other standard measures of OSA risk is unclear. We assessed for racial disparities in OSA characteristics at time of initial clinical diagnosis.