Current opinion in anaesthesiology
-
Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Dec 2021
ReviewAmbulatory surgery for cancer patients: current controversies and concerns.
This review aims to describe the main concerns and controversies of ambulatory surgery in cancer patients while providing an overview of ambulatory cancer anaesthesia. ⋯ Neither regional anaesthesia or general anaesthesia have proven to affect the long-term oncological outcomes of cancer patients undergoing ambulatory surgery. In addition, there is insufficient evidence to suggest the use of total intravenous anaesthesia or inhalational anaesthesia over the other to decrease cancer recurrence.
-
Millions of perioperative crises (e.g. anaphylaxis, cardiac arrest) may occur annually. Critical event debriefing can offer benefits to the individual, team, and system, yet only a fraction of perioperative critical events are debriefed in real-time. This publication aims to review evidence-based best practices for proximal critical event debriefing. ⋯ There is growing literature on how to conduct proximal perioperative critical event debriefing. Evidence-based best practices, as well as a cognitive aid to apply them, may help bridge the gap between theory and clinical practice. In this era of increased attention to burnout and wellness, the consideration of interventions to improve the quality and frequency of critical event debriefing is paramount.
-
Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Dec 2021
ReviewDischarging select patients without an escort after ambulatory anesthesia: identifying return to baseline function.
The current standard of care requires ambulatory surgical patients to have an escort for discharge. Recent studies have started to challenge this dogma. Modern ultrashort acting anesthetics have minimal psychomotor effects after a couple of hours. Driving simulator performance and psychomotor testing return to baseline as soon as 1 h following propofol sedation. ⋯ A reliable test to document return of function might allow safe discharge without an escort. Currently, there is intense interest in developing reliable, inexpensive, easy to administer psychomotor function testing to improve workplace safety and legally define the effects of drugs on driving impairment. Future studies may be able to adapt this technology and develop a validated test for residual anesthetic impairment.
-
Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Dec 2021
ReviewSedation/analgesia techniques for nonoperating room anesthesia: new drugs and devices.
The purpose of this article is to review new drugs and devices for nonoperating room anesthesia (NORA). ⋯ Further studies are required before these new drugs and devices are embraced in NORA.
-
This review addresses the importance of some of the human factors for intraoperative patient safety with particular focus on the active failures. These are the mishaps or sentinel events related to decisons taken and actions performed by the individual at the delivery end of a system. Such sentinel events may greatly affect intraoperative patient safety. ⋯ The concept of physician well being is multidimensional and includes factors related to each physician as an individual as well as to the working environment. Creating optimal safe conditions for patients, therefore, requires actions at both the personal level and the working conditions. Also, initiatives to ban rude and dismissive communication should be implemented in order to further improve intraoperative patient safety.