Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge Gregory Welyczko of GE Healthcare (retired), Stanley Weitzner, MD, and Mark Graber of GE Healthcare (retired) for their contributions to the anesthesia equipment standards in Table 27.8 . Overview It was once possible to practice “safe”…
Overview To prevent harm resulting from anesthesia care and to continuously improve patient safety, active effort is needed to manage process risk. The concept of risk management (RM) is widely applied in many domains, including health care. Successful RM is…
Overview Although the large majority of anesthesia critical incidents and catastrophes involve errors in human judgment, some events involve overt equipment failure or failure of the anesthesia provider to discover an equipment problem. Many equipment problems in anesthesia practice are…
Introduction The myriad of electrical and electronic devices in the modern operating room (OR) greatly improve patient care and safety. However, these devices also subject both the patient and OR personnel to increased risks. To reduce the risk of electrical…
Acknowledgments We would like to thank the following individuals for their feedback on the Cybersecurity section: Anura Fernando, Julian Goldman, MD, Andy Levi, Ben Ransford, PhD, and Yi Zhang, PhD. Perspective Failure of the anesthesia delivery system alone is a…
Inhalational Anesthesia in Difficult Locations Modern anesthesia workstations are complex and sophisticated pieces of medical equipment. They have evolved over many years to improve performance and reduce the risk of accidents and mishaps. The most recent workstations offer the ability…
Overview In the course of common anesthetic practice, it is unusual to worry about alterations in total environmental pressure, because the majority of anesthetic procedures are conducted within a limited pressure range. In fact, most organized hospital settings have developed…
Overview Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a widely used diagnostic modality with 30 million scans done annually in the United States alone according to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report from 2016. During MRI, the patient must remain…
Principles Introduction The basic principle of closed-circuit anesthesia is maintenance of a constant anesthetic state by adding gases and vapors to the breathing circuit at the same rate at which the patient’s body removes those same substances. Often, the desired…
History Decades ago, accidental delivery of hypoxic gas mixtures was a constant threat during general anesthesia. Many instances of hypoxia were attributed to human error. In some cases, the anesthesiologist mistakenly turned the wrong gas flow control knob or failed…