Paediatric anaesthesia
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Jul 2011
Design and implementation of a near-miss reporting system at a large, academic pediatric anesthesia department.
Current incident reporting systems encourage retrospective reporting of morbidity and mortality and have low participation rates. A near miss is an event that did not cause patient harm, but had the potential to. By tracking and analyzing near misses, systems improvements can be targeted appropriately, and future errors may be prevented. ⋯ An anesthesia-specific anonymous near-miss reporting system, which eases and facilitates data entry and can prospectively identify processes and practices that place patients at risk, was implemented at a large, academic, freestanding children's hospital. This resulted in a dramatic increase in reported events and provided data to target and drive quality and process improvement.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Jul 2011
Improving surgical safety globally: pulse oximetry and the WHO Guidelines for Safe Surgery.
Access to safe surgery should be considered as part of the basic human right for health, but unfortunately, this ideal is far from being reached in many low-income countries. Pulse oximetry is recommended as a minimum standard of monitoring by all anesthesia organizations that have set standards, yet around 78,000 operating theaters worldwide lack this essential monitor. The WHO Safe Surgery Saves Lives Program has identified evidence-based guidelines for safe surgery that are applicable in any setting, and the Global Pulse Oximetry Program will help improve access to pulse oximetry in countries where it is not available. However, these initiatives are just a start; capacity, infrastructure, trained healthcare providers and access to essential drugs, and equipment for anesthesia and surgery need to become a public health priority in many low-income countries.