Best practice & research. Clinical anaesthesiology
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Emergency medicine has been a stronghold of simulation-based training ever since high-fidelity simulators became available. The preclinical setting differs remarkably from any in-hospital environment in both available technology and resources, and thus stress levels of the health-care professionals involved in patient care – ideal factors for the simulation-based teaching approach. This review reports on the current status of the method for teaching preclinical scenarios from an educational and practical perspective. Particular attention is given to contents, formats, and evaluation of success.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Mar 2015
ReviewFirst of all: Do not harm! Use of simulation for the training of regional anaesthesia techniques: Which skills can be trained without the patient as substitute for a mannequin.
Character of clinical skills training is always influenced by technical improvement and cultural changes. Over the last years, two trends have changed the way of traditional apprenticeship-style training in regional anaesthesia: firstly, the development in ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia, and secondly, the reduced acceptance of using patients as mannequins for invasive techniques. Against this background, simulation techniques are explored, ranging from simple low-fidelity part-task training models to train skills in needle application, to highly sophisticated virtual reality models – the full range is covered. ⋯ The task in clinical practice will be in choosing the right level of sophistication for the desired approach and trainee level. However, the transfer of simulated skills to clinical practice has not been evaluated. It has to be proven whether simulation-trained skills could, as a last consequence, reduce the risk to patients.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Dec 2014
ReviewImpact of hemodynamic monitoring on clinical outcomes.
In recent years, there has been a tremendous growth in available hemodynamic monitoring devices to support clinical decision-making in the operating room and intensive care unit. In addition to the "tried and true" heart rate and blood pressure monitors, there are several newer applications of existing technologies including arterial waveform analysis, intraoperative and bedside critical care echocardiography, esophageal Doppler, and tissue oximetry, among others. ⋯ While these new technologies offer promising advances in intraoperative and critical care, they are often quite costly and many devices lack strong evidence for widespread adoption into clinical practice. In this review, we highlight the current data on clinical outcomes with the use of available hemodynamic monitoring devices.
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Blood pressure is overwhelmingly the most commonly measured parameter for the assessment of haemodynamic stability. In clinical routine in the operating theatre and in the intensive care unit, blood pressure measurements are usually obtained intermittently and non-invasively using oscillometry (upper-arm cuff method) or continuously and invasively with an arterial catheter. However, both the oscillometric method and arterial catheter-derived blood pressure measurements have potential limitations. ⋯ In the recent years, technologies for continuous non-invasive blood pressure recording such as the volume clamp method or radial artery applanation tonometry have been developed and validated. The question in which patient groups and clinical settings these technologies should be applied to improve patient safety or outcome has not been definitively answered. In critically ill patients and high-risk surgery patients, further improvement of these technologies is needed before they can be recommended for routine clinical use.