Anesthesia and analgesia
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Medications used in anesthesiology contain both pharmacologically active compounds and additional additives that are usually regarded as being pharmacologically inactive. These additives, called excipients, serve diverse functions. ⋯ Anesthesiologists should have a clear understanding of their chemical properties and the potential for adverse reactions. This report catalogs the excipients found in drugs commonly used in anesthesiology, provides a brief description of their function, and documents examples from the literature regarding their adverse effects.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · May 2019
Process Optimization and Digital Quality Improvement to Enhance Timely Initiation of Epidural Infusions and Postoperative Pain Control.
Although intraoperative epidural analgesia improves postoperative pain control, a recent quality improvement project demonstrated that only 59% of epidural infusions are started in the operating room before patient arrival in the postanesthesia care unit. We evaluated the combined effect of process and digital quality improvement efforts on provider compliance with starting continuous epidural infusions during surgery. ⋯ Process workflow optimization along with Anesthesia Information Management System-mediated digital quality improvement efforts increased compliance to intraoperative epidural infusion initiation. Adjusted for preintervention time trends, these findings coincided with a statistically insignificant decrease in postoperative opioid use in the postanesthesia care unit during the POST phase.