• Vet Anaesth Analg · Mar 2016

    Adverse event surveillance in small animal anaesthesia: an intervention-based, voluntary reporting audit.

    • Matthew McMillan and Hannah Darcy.
    • Department of Veterinary Medicine, Queen's Veterinary School Hospital, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
    • Vet Anaesth Analg. 2016 Mar 1; 43 (2): 128-35.

    ObjectiveTo develop, test and refine an 'intervention-based' system for the surveillance of adverse events (AEs) during small animal anaesthesia.Study DesignProspective, voluntary reporting audit.AnimalsA total of 1386 consecutive small animal anaesthetics (including 972 dogs and 387 cats).MethodsAdverse events were defined as undesirable perianaesthetic events requiring remedial intervention to prevent or limit patient morbidity. Using previous reports, 11 common AEs were selected and 'intervention-based' definitions were devised. A voluntary reporting audit was performed over 1 year at a university teaching hospital. Data on AEs were collected via paper checkbox forms completed after each anaesthetic and were assimilated using an electronic database. Interventions were performed entirely at the discretion of the attending anaesthetist. Comparisons between dogs and cats were made using Fisher's exact tests.ResultsForms were completed for 1114 anaesthetics (a compliance of 80.4%), with 1001 AEs reported in 572 patients. The relative frequency of AEs reported were as follows: arousal or breakthrough pain (14.9%), hypoventilation (13.5%), hypotension (10.3%), arrhythmias (5.8%), hyperthermia/hypothermia (5.0%), airway complications (4.8%), recovery excitation (4.6%), aspiration risk (4.5%), desaturation (2.8%), hypertension (1.7%) and 'other' (3.7%). Canine anaesthetics (57.3%) were more likely to involve AEs than were feline anaesthetics (35.5%, p < 0.01). Escalation in postanaesthetic care was required in 20% of cases where an AE was reported (8% of anaesthetics overall). In 6% of cases (2% overall), this involved management in an intensive care unit. There were six intra-anaesthetic fatalities (0.43%) during this period. The tool was widely accepted, being considered quick and easy to complete, but several semantic, logistical and personnel factors were encountered.Conclusions And Clinical RelevanceSimple intervention-based surveillance tools can be easily integrated into small animal anaesthetic practice, providing a valuable evidence base for anaesthetists. A number of considerations must be addressed to ensure compliance and the quality of data collected.© 2015 Association of Veterinary Anaesthetists and the American College of Veterinary Anesthesia and Analgesia.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…