Anaesthesia and intensive care
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Anaesth Intensive Care · May 2023
Long-term capacity planning for obstetric surgical suites using quantile linear regression.
Obstetric surgical suites differ from most inpatient surgical suites, serving one specialty, and often small. We evaluated long-term capacity planning for these operating rooms. The retrospective cohort study included all caesarean births in three operating rooms over 28 years, 1994 through 2021, plus all other obstetric procedures over the latter 19 years. ⋯ The annual total for the index increased linearly, Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.98, supporting validity of the finding that long-term capacity can be planned with linear regression. The difference between 0.9 and 0.1 quantiles in weekly totals of the index exceeded annual rate of growth, supporting validity of the finding that variability week to week is very large relative to growth. These results help decision-makers ensure that operating rooms and staff meet referring hospitals' needs.
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Among all surgical specialties, vascular surgery has the greatest proportion of patients with unplanned admissions to the intensive care unit postoperatively. Therefore, current clinical pathways for the postoperative management of vascular surgery patients may need to be revised. We aimed to compare the prevalence of postoperative deterioration in the high and standard risk cohorts of patients through several markers: medical emergency team activations and unplanned intensive care unit admissions. ⋯ In addition, surgical outcome risk tool 5% or greater risk patients were approximately five times more likely to experience a medical emergency team activation than their surgical outcome risk tool less than 5% risk counterparts (relative risk 5.15, 95% confidence interval 3.37-7.86). Our findings highlight the need for a revision of the inpatient journey for surgical outcome risk tool 5% or greater risk vascular patients, given their increased rates of unfavourable postoperative outcomes such as unplanned intensive care unit admission and medical emergency team activation. Ideally this can be addressed through appropriate postoperative triage, thus allowing this vulnerable population group early access to higher acuity care.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · May 2023
Observational StudyPerioperative oxygen administration in patients undergoing major non-cardiac surgery under general anaesthesia in Australia and New Zealand.
The practice of anaesthetists relating to the administration of intraoperative oxygen has not been previously quantified in Australia and New Zealand. The optimal regimen of intraoperative oxygen administration to patients undergoing surgery under general anaesthesia is not known, and international recommendations for oxygen therapy are contradictory; the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend administering an intraoperative fraction of inspired oxygen of at least 0.8, while the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, British Thoracic Society, and Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand recommend a more restrictive approach. We conducted a prospective observational study to describe the pattern of intraoperative oxygen administration among anaesthetists in Australia and New Zealand and, second, to determine the proportion of anaesthetists who administer intraoperative inspired oxygen in accordance with the WHO recommendations. ⋯ The median (interquartile range) intraoperative time-weighted mean fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) for all participants in the study was 0.47 (0.40-0.55). Three out of 150 anaesthetists (2%, 95% confidence interval 0.4 to 5.7) administered an average intraoperative FiO2 of at least 0.8. These findings indicate that most anaesthetists routinely administer an intermediate level of oxygen for ASA 3 or 4 adult patients undergoing prolonged surgery in Australia and New Zealand, rather than down-titrating inspired oxygen to a target pulse oximetry reading (SpO2) or administering liberal perioperative oxygen therapy in line with the current WHO recommendation.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · May 2023
The Bullying in Anaesthesia Registrars Survey (BARS): Does a validated questionnaire improve our understanding of bullying in Australian and New Zealand anaesthesia trainees?
Previous studies have established that bullying is a pervasive problem in healthcare. However, most investigations of bullying in anaesthesia use self-labelled survey questions in which respondents' subjective perceptions of bullying are central in defining prevalence. This study applied the validated revised Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-r) for a more objective assessment of bullying prevalence and types of negative behaviours experienced by anaesthesia trainees in Australia and New Zealand. ⋯ Using NAQ-r cut-offs, 36% of respondents experienced occasional bullying and 10% were victims of severe workplace bullying. The NAQ-r provides a more nuanced and objective insight into bullying faced by ANZCA trainees than do self-labelled surveys. The results of the present study provide a valuable baseline for ongoing assessment.