Anesthesia and analgesia
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 2013
Communication latencies of apple push notification messages relevant for delivery of time-critical information to anesthesia providers.
Tablet computers and smart phones have gained popularity in anesthesia departments for educational and patient care purposes. VigiVU(™) is an iOS application developed at Vanderbilt University for remote viewing of perioperative information, including text message notifications delivered via the Apple Push Notification (APN) service. In this study, we assessed the reliability of the APN service. ⋯ The APN service was reliable for all studied devices over WLAN and cellular pathways, and performance was better than third party paging systems using Internet connections previously investigated using the same criteria. However, since our study was a best-case assessment, testing is required at individual sites considering use of this technology for critical messaging. Furthermore, since the APN service may fail due to Internet or service provider disruptions, a backup paging system is recommended if the APN service were to be used for critical messaging.
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 2013
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyThe analgesic efficacy of subcostal transversus abdominis plane block compared with thoracic epidural analgesia and intravenous opioid analgesia after radical gastrectomy.
The transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block has been shown to provide effective postoperative analgesia in lower abdominal surgery. Subcostal TAP block has also been proposed as a new technique to provide analgesia for the supraumbilical abdomen. We compared the analgesic and opioid-sparing effects of a single-injection subcostal TAP block with continuous thoracic epidural analgesia and IV opioid analgesia. ⋯ Single-injection subcostal TAP block was more effective than IV opioid analgesia, while continuous thoracic epidural analgesia was more effective than the single-injection subcostal TAP block.