Audrey Patterson
Anesthesia is a term used in medicine when referring to the practice of using medical drugs to reduce pain and/or dull a patient’s senses during surgery. This is a very necessary
process as having a patient react to the pain from a surgery being performed could cause
complications during the surgery and it would be incredibly uncomfortable for most
patients. Anesthesia is usually used in the operating room but there are cases of anesthetics
being used outside the operating room for things such as in transesophageal
echocardiography (a medical test where sound waves are used to take pictures of the heart),
during a patient’s recovery, and many more. These cases involve non-operating room
anesthesia (NORA). While most current cases of anesthetic use are in a hospital and
usually in an operating room, NORA cases are projected to exceed 50% of total anesthesia
cases in the near future. The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation recently did a review of
resources that have been available when anesthesia was used outside the operating room.
Following this review, a list of regulations for methods, staffing, equipment, procedural
care, and patient selection for cases.
The big issues regarding NORA include that outside the operating room, there is an increased distance from normal equipment used in anesthesia, most providers who work
regularly with anesthetics work in the operating room, and there could be communication
issues within a hospital regarding the care of a patient who didn’t come from the operating
room but still required the usage of anesthetics. The article linked below details the new
NORA regulations created by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation address the
safe conduct of non-operating room anesthesia. These regulations mostly focus on who can
use anesthesia outside the operating room such as what their qualifications have to be, who
can be a patient in a NORA case, and what equipment must be present and in working
order within the facility. These new regulations should help protect patients from receiving
a lower standard of care and ensure safety procedures are followed properly.
References:
Beard J, Methangkool E, Angus S, Urman RD, Cole DJ. Consensus Recommendations for the Safe Conduct of Nonoperating Room Anesthesia: A Meeting Report From the 2022 Stoelting Conference of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation. Anesth Analg. 2023;137(2):e8-e11. doi:10.1213/ANE.0000000000006539
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