Search

There are four challenges to practicing evidence-based medicine: obtaining the evidence; evaluating the evidence; promulgating the evidence; and persuading practitioners to adopt the evidence and practice according to the evidence. The Perfusion Down Under (PDU) Collaboration addresses the first three. The fourth is more difficult, and it typically takes many years for new evidence to be adopted into widespread practice. In the case of innovations related to patient safety, evidence from randomized controlled trials is often very expensive to obtain. Other methods of evaluation may be more appropriate, but these do need to be robust and to take account of the constructs underlying the innovations and the context in which they are to be implemented. In the United States, The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) aims (among other things) to promote the adoption of best practices and effective innovations. The IHI has articulated a useful framework for doing this. Measurement is fundamental to quality improvement, and sustainable change is likely to be more readily achieved if claims are supported by credible, measurable, and clinically relevant outcome data. The PDU is well placed to support quality improvement in perfusion by providing such data.

Extensive literature has been published evaluating the use of cell salvage in cardiac surgery. However, the most recently published blood management guidelines do not give unequivocal direction on the use of cell salvage in cardiac surgical procedures and neither do recent meta-analyses and randomized controlled trials. In part, this reflects variation in the details of how cell salvage is used, including the specific equipment chosen. Consensus on the optimal approach to cell salvage would be helpful. A well-designed, appropriately powered, multicenter study could then be carried out with one or more specified devices to evaluate the efficacy of this agreed approach to cell salvage in the cardiac surgical environment.

Medication errors in pediatric anesthesia represent an important risk to children. Concerted action to reduce harm from this cause is overdue. An understanding of the genesis of avoidable adverse drug events may facilitate the development of effective countermeasures to the events or their effects. Errors include those involving the automatic system of cognition and those involving the reflective system. Errors and violations are distinct, but violations often predispose to error. The system of medication administration is complex, and many aspects of it are conducive to error. Evidence-based practices to reduce the risk of medication error in general include those encompassed by the following recommendations: systematic countermeasures should be used to decrease the number of drug administration errors in anesthesia; the label on any drug ampoule or syringe should be read carefully before a drug is drawn up or injected; the legibility and contents of labels on ampoules and syringes should be optimized according to agreed standards; syringes should always be labeled; formal organization of drug drawers and workspaces should be used; labels should be checked with a second person or a device before a drug is drawn up or administered. Dosage errors are particularly common in pediatric patients. Causes that should be addressed include a lack of pediatric formulations and/or presentations of medication that necessitates dilution before administration or the use of intravenous formulations for oral administration in children, a frequent failure to obtain accurate weights for patients and a paucity of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data. Technological innovations, including the use of bar codes and various cognitive aids, may facilitate compliance with these recommendations. Improved medication safety requires a system-wide strategy standardized at least to the level of the institution; it is the responsibility of institutional leadership to introduce such strategies and of individual practitioners to engage in them., (© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)

Objectives: To assess the relationship between changes in clinician attitude and changes in postoperative outcomes following a checklist-based surgical safety intervention., Design: Pre- and post intervention survey., Setting: Eight hospitals participating in a trial of a WHO surgical safety checklist., Participants: Clinicians actively working in the designated study operating rooms at the eight hospitals., Survey Instrument: Modified operating-room version Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ)., Main Outcome Measures: Change in mean safety attitude score and correlation between change in safety attitude score and change in postoperative outcomes, plus clinician opinion of checklist efficacy and usability., Results: Clinicians in the preintervention phase (n=281) had a mean SAQ score of 3.91 (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing better safety attitude), while the postintervention group (n=257) had a mean of 4.01 (p=0.0127). The degree of improvement in mean SAQ score at each site correlated with a reduction in postoperative complication rate (r=0.7143, p=0.0381). The checklist was considered easy to use by 80.2% of respondents, while 19.8% felt that it took a long time to complete, and 78.6% felt that the programme prevented errors. Overall, 93.4% would want the checklist used if they were undergoing operation., Conclusions: Improvements in postoperative outcomes were associated with improved perception of teamwork and safety climate among respondents, suggesting that changes in these may be partially responsible for the effect of the checklist. Clinicians held the checklist in high regard and the overwhelming majority would want it used if they were undergoing surgery themselves.

Background: Drug administration errors occur in every aspect of clinical practice. Using a novel task-relevant Medication Recognition and Confirmation Test (MRCT), we investigated the effects on performance of working night and day shifts and labelling different drug formats., Methods: Anesthesia trainees (n = 18) participated in one of two experiments during an 8-12 hr day shift and an 8-12 hr night shift. In Experiment-1 (n = 10), we compared standardized colour-coded labels with pictures of ampoules. In Experiment-2 (n = 8), we compared colour-coded labels with black and white labels. Sleep was measured with wrist actigraphy during both day and night shift runs over seven to eight days. The MRCT outcome measures were reaction times and drug errors., Results: In the two experiments, colour-coded labels were recognized (and therefore selected) more quickly than pictures of conventional ampoules (mean difference 332 msec, 95% confidence interval (CI) 242-422 msec; P < 0.0001) and faster than black and white labels (mean difference 96 msec, 95% CI 46-146 msec; P < 0.0001). Participants obtained less sleep while working night shifts than while working day shifts (mean difference 57 min, 95% CI 0:15-1:39 hr; P = 0.013). Mean confirmation reaction times were slower during night shifts than during day shifts (mean difference 60 msec, 95% CI 1-120 msec; P = 0.048). No differences in error rates were observed between shifts or among drug label types., Conclusions: Label format influenced recognition and confirmation reaction times to representations of drugs in this study, and we found some evidence to suggest that performance is better during day shifts than during night shifts. The task-relevant test evaluated here may have further application in measuring performance in the wider clinical setting.

Purpose: To enhance patient safety through contemporaneous and comprehensive standards for a safe practice of anesthesia that augment, enhance, and support similar standards already published by various countries and that provide a resource for countries that have yet to formulate such standards., Standards Development: The Safe Anesthesia Working Group of the World Health Organization's "Safe Surgery Saves Lives" global initiative updated the 1992 International Standards for the Safe Practice of Anaesthesia (Standards) through an iterative process of literature review, consultation, debate, drafting, and refinement. These Standards address, in detail, the organization, support, practices, and infrastructure for anesthesia care. The Standards are grounded in the fundamental principle of safety in anesthesia, i.e., the continuous presence of an appropriately trained, vigilant anesthesia professional. In effect, the use of pulse oximetry during anesthesia is now considered mandatory, with acknowledgement that compromise may be unavoidable in emergencies. At the World Congress of Anaesthesiologists in 2008, drafts were presented for comment, further refinements were made, and the Revised Standards were adopted by the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA). These Revised Standards were posted on the WFSA website for further feedback, and minor revisions followed. The International Standards for a Safe Practice of Anesthesia 2010 were endorsed by the Executive Committee of the WFSA in March 2010. Ongoing periodic revision is planned., Conclusion: While they are universally applicable, the 2010 Standards primarily target lesser-resourced areas. They are designed particularly for regions that have yet to formulate or adopt their own standards so as to promote optimum patient outcomes in every anesthetizing location in the world.

Purpose: The incidence of hypoxemia in patients undergoing surgery is largely unknown and may have a clinical impact. The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of intraoperative hypoxemia in a large surgical population., Methods: We performed a retrospective study of electronically recorded pulse oximetry data obtained from two large academic medical centres. All adults (age ≥ 16 yr) undergoing non-cardiac surgery during a three-year period at the two hospitals were included in the analysis. Our main outcome measure was the percentage of patients with episodes of hypoxemia (SpO(2) < 90) or severe hypoxemia (SpO(2) ≤ 85) for two minutes or longer during the intraoperative period (induction of anesthesia, surgery, and emergence)., Results: We evaluated 95,407 electronic anesthesia records at the two hospitals. During the intraoperative period, 6.8% of patients had a hypoxemic event, and 3.5% of patients had a severely hypoxemic event of two consecutive minutes or longer. Seventy percent of the hypoxemic episodes occurred during either induction or emergence- time periods that represent 21% of the total intraoperative time. From induction to emergence, one episode of hypoxemia occurred every 28.9 hr, and one episode of severe hypoxemia occurred every 55.7 hr of intraoperative time., Conclusion: Despite advances in monitoring technology, hypoxemia continues to occur commonly in the operating room and may be a serious safety concern because of its potential impact on end organ function and long-term outcomes. Further studies are needed to improve our understanding of the clinical impact of intraoperative hypoxemia and the strategies that will be most useful in minimizing its occurrence.

A safety-orientated system of delivering parenteral anaesthetic drugs was assessed in a prospective incident monitoring study at two hospitals. Anaesthetists completed an incident form for every anaesthetic, indicating if an incident occurred. Case mix data were collected and the number of drug administrations made during procedures estimated. From February 1998 at Hospital A and from June 1999 at Hospital B, until November 2003, 74,478 anaesthetics were included, for which 59,273 incident forms were returned (a 79.6% response rate). Fewer parenteral drug errors occurred with the new system than with conventional methods (58 errors in an estimated 183,852 drug administrations (0.032%, 95% CI 0.024-0.041%) vs 268 in 550,105 (0.049%, 95% CI 0.043-0.055%) respectively, p = 0.002), a relative reduction of 35% (difference 0.017%, 95% CI 0.006-0.028%). No major adverse outcomes from these errors were reported with the new system while 11 (0.002%) were reported with conventional methods (p = 0.055). We conclude that targeted system re-design can reduce medical error.

Safety in cardiac surgery should be evaluated in the context of the other elements of quality in healthcare (timeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and most importantly, patient-centeredness). Mortality alone is not an adequate index of safety: Stroke is particularly feared by patients and prolonged periods of hospitalization can be very difficult for families to cope with. Advances in knowledge, technology, and medications have improved outcomes, but pharmacological means of reducing cerebral dysfunction after cardiopulmonary bypass remain elusive. Clear differences can be demonstrated between the results of different surgeons and also between different anesthesiologists. The World Health Organization's recently introduced Surgical Safety Checklist provides a validated and inexpensive cognitive aid to reduce human error and improve teamwork and communication in the operating room. Patient selection is very important, and patients should be given clear information on the relative merits of alternative treatments (for example, coronary surgery, percutaneous intervention, and medical treatment in the case of coronary artery disease). In the end, outcomes that the patients themselves desire are the most meaningful endpoint of the pursuit of safer cardiac surgery.

Aim: To replicate electromagnetic interference (EMI) with a common drug infusion device resulting from the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in a simulated operating theatre environment., Method: An infusion pump, of a type previously reported as having failed due to RFID EMI, was placed in radio frequency (RF) fields of various strengths, and its operation observed. Different strength RF fields were created by varying the number of RFID readers, the use of a high-gain RFID antenna, the distance between the reader(s) and the infusion pump, and the presence of an RFID tag on the infusion pump., Results: The infusion pump was not affected by low-power RFID readers, even when in direct contact. The pump was disrupted by a high-power reader at 10 cm distance when an RFID tag was attached, and by a combination of high-power and low-power readers at 10 cm distance., Conclusions: Electronic medical devices may fail in the presence of high-power RFID readers, especially if the device is tagged. However, low-power RFID readers appear to be safer.

Peri-operative brain injury continues to occur in cardiac surgery despite a significant effort in preventative research spanning 50 years. There has been much interest in pharmacologic neuro-protection. Six drugs, thiopentone, prostacyclin, nimodipine, remacemide, lignocaine, and Glypromate, have been the subject of one or more randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Only the results for Glypromate are unknown at this stage. In all other cases, the studies have been negative, equivocal, or initially positive but followed by negative studies. Lignocaine is arguably the most extensively studied. In vitro and in vivo experiments that proved lignocaine to be neuro-protective were followed by two RCTs that showed reductions in post-operative cognitive deficits. However, two further RCTs have failed to demonstrate benefit. Lignocaine cannot be recommended for neuro-protection in cardiac surgery at this time, but a role in clinical neuro-protection in this or other contexts is not ruled out.