Precision Anesthesia in 2050.

Over the last few decades, the field of anesthesia has advanced far beyond its humble beginnings. Today's anesthetics are better and safer than ever, thanks to innovations in drugs, monitors, equipment, and patient safety.1-4 At the same time, we remain limited by our herd approach to medicine. Each of our patients is unique, but health care today is based on a one-size-fits-all approach, while our patients grow older and more medically complex every year. By 2050, we believe that precision medicine will play a central role across all medical specialties, including anesthesia. In addition, we expect that health care and consumer technology will continually evolve to improve and simplify the interactions between patients, providers, and the health care system. As demonstrated by 2 hypothetical patient experiences, these advancements will enable more efficient and safe care, earlier and more accurate diagnoses, and truly personalized treatment plans.

Negative pressure suction test: An intraoperative airway maneuver to assess effectiveness of surgical correction of tracheobronchomalacia.

BACKGROUND: Surgical correction of tracheobronchomalacia (TBM) has evolved greatly over the past decade, with select pediatric institutions establishing dedicated surgery and anesthesia teams to navigate the complexities and challenges of surgical airway repairs. Although anesthetic techniques have evolved internally over many years to improve patient safety and outcomes, many of these methods remain undescribed in literature. TECHNIQUE: In this article, we describe the intraoperative negative pressure suction test. This simulates the negative pressure seen in awake and spontaneously breathing patients, including the higher pressures seen during coughing which induce airway collapse in patients with TBM. Also known as the Munoz maneuver in surgical literature, this test has been performed on over 300 patients since 2015. DISCUSSION: The negative pressure suction test allows for controlled intraoperative assessment of surgical airway repairs, replaces the need for risky intraoperative wake-up tests, increases the chances of a successful surgical repair, and improves anesthetic management for emergence and extubation. We provide a guide on how to perform the test and videos demonstrating its efficacy in intraoperative airway evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: As surgeries to repair TBM become more prevalent in other pediatric institutions, we believe that pediatric patients and anesthesia providers will benefit from the insights and methods described here.

The Effect of Novel Decision Support Tools on Technical and Non-Technical Performance of Teams in Managing Emergencies.

Cognitive aids have been shown to facilitate adherence to evidence-based guidelines and improve technical performance of teams when managing simulated critical events. Few studies have explored the effect of cognitive aids on non-technical skills, such as teamwork and communication. The current study sought to explore the effects of different decision support tools (DST), a type of cognitive aid, on the technical and non-technical performance of teams. The current study represents a randomized, blinded, control trial of the effects of three versions of an electronic DST on team performance during multiple simulations of perioperative emergencies. The DSTs included a version with only technical information, a version with only non-technical information and a version with both technical and non-technical information. The technical performance of teams was improved when they used the technical DST and the combined technical and non-technical DST when compared to memory alone. The technical performance of teams was significantly worse when using the non-technical DST. All three versions of the DST had a negligible effect on the non-technical performance of teams. The technical performance of teams in the current study was affected by different versions of a DST, yet there was no effect on the teams' non-technical performance. The use of a DST, including those that focused on non-technical information, did not impact the non-technical performance of the teams.

The timing of cognitive aid access during simulated pediatric intraoperative critical events.

BACKGROUND: Many cognitive aids are formatted in a step-by-step fashion with the intent that the aid will be accessed at the beginning of a critical event and that key behaviors will be performed in sequence. AIMS: We hypothesized that, during simulated pediatric intraoperative critical events, anesthesia clinicians may not use cognitive aids immediately after the onset of a critical event but instead access the aid only after first performing several key behaviors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This manuscript is a re-analysis of previously published simulation data. The original study involved 89 clinicians participating in 143 pediatric intraoperative events divided into 6 types: arrhythmia, venous air embolus, hypoxemia, malignant hyperthermia, hypotension, and supraventricular tachycardia. For each trial involving cognitive aid use, we measured the time from event trigger to cognitive aid use, and the number and type of key behaviors performed by simulation participants prior to cognitive aid access. RESULTS: Cognitive aid use was sought in 66 of 93 trials where it was available. Sufficient data for this analysis were available in 65 trials. The average time from event trigger to first cognitive aid use was 258 seconds. In 62/65 trials (95%), the cognitive aid was accessed after at least one key behavior had already been performed. The time from event trigger to cognitive aid use varied by type of scenario (P = .03, df 5, adjusted H 12.78), with the shortest time for "supraventricular tachycardia" (90 [66,156] seconds (median [IQR]) and the longest time for "hypoxemia" (354 [192,492] seconds). CONCLUSION: In simulated critical events, anesthesia residents and student nurse anesthetists often consulted a cognitive aid only after first performing at least some key behaviors. Incorporating the possibility of delayed access into critical event cognitive aid design may facilitate the effectiveness of that aid.

Development and Pilot Testing of a Context-Relevant Safe Anesthesia Checklist for Cesarean Delivery in East Africa.

BACKGROUND: Maternal mortality rate in developing countries is 20 times higher than in developed countries. Detailed reports surrounding maternal deaths have noted an association between substandard management during emergency events and death. In parallel with these findings, there is increasing evidence for cognitive aids as a means to prevent errors during perioperative crises. However, previously published findings are not directly applicable to cesarean delivery in low-income settings. Our hypothesis was that the use of obstetric anesthesia checklists in the management of high-fidelity simulated obstetrical emergency scenarios would improve adherence to best practice guidelines in low- and middle-income countries. METHODS: Accordingly, with input from East African health care professionals, we created a context-relevant obstetric anesthesia checklist for cesarean delivery. Second, clinical observations were performed to assess in a real-world setting. Third, a pilot testing of the cognitive aid was undertaken. RESULTS: Clinical observation data highlighted significant deficiencies in the management of obstetric emergencies. The use of the cesarean delivery checklist during simulations of peripartum hemorrhage and preeclampsia showed significant improvement in the percentage of completed actions (pretraining 23% ± 6% for preeclampsia and 22% ± 13% for peripartum hemorrhage, posttraining 75% ± 9% for preeclampsia, and 69% ± 9% for peripartum hemorrhage [P < .0001, both scenarios; data as mean ± standard deviation]). CONCLUSIONS: We developed, evaluated, and begun implementation of a context-relevant checklist for the management of obstetric crisis in low- and middle-income countries. We demonstrated not only the need for this tool in a real-world setting but also confirmed its potential efficacy through a pilot simulation study.

The Development and Implementation of Cognitive Aids for Critical Events in Pediatric Anesthesia: The Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Critical Events Checklists.

Cognitive aids such as checklists are commonly used in modern operating rooms for routine processes, and the use of such aids may be even more important during critical events. The Quality and Safety Committee of the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia (SPA) has developed a set of critical-event checklists and cognitive aids designed for 3 purposes: (1) as a repository of the latest evidence-based and expert opinion-based information to guide response and management of critical events, (2) as a source of just-in-time information during critical events, and (3) as a method to facilitate a shared understanding of required actions among team members during a critical event. Committee members, who represented children's hospitals from across the nation, used the recent literature and established guidelines (where available) and incorporated the expertise of colleagues at their institutions to develop these checklists, which included relevant factors to consider and steps to take in response to critical events. Human factors principles were incorporated to enhance checklist usability, facilitate error-free accomplishment, and ensure a common approach to checklist layout, formatting, structure, and design.The checklists were made available in multiple formats: a PDF version for easy printing, a mobile application, and at some institutions, a Web-based application using the anesthesia information management system. After the checklists were created, training commenced, and plans for validation were begun. User training is essential for successful implementation and should ideally include explanation of the organization of the checklists; familiarization of users with the layout, structure, and formatting of the checklists; coaching in how to use the checklists in a team environment; reviewing of the items; and simulation of checklist use. Because of the rare and unpredictable nature of critical events, clinical trials that use crisis checklists are difficult to conduct; however, recent and future simulation studies with adult checklists provide a promising avenue for future validation of the SPA checklists. This article will review the developmental steps in producing the SPA crisis checklists, including creation of content, incorporation of human factors elements, and validation in simulation. Critical-events checklists have the potential to improve patient care during emergency events, and it is hoped that incorporating the elements presented in this article will aid in successful implementation of these essential cognitive aids.

Fluid resuscitation for acute kidney injury: an empty promise.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The past decade has seen more advances in our understanding of fluid therapy than the preceding decades combined. What was once thought to be a relatively benign panacea is increasingly being recognized as a potent pharmacological and physiological intervention that may pose as much harm as benefit. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent studies have clearly indicated that the amount, type, and timing of fluid administration have profound effects on patient morbidity and outcomes. The practice of aggressive volume resuscitation for 'renal protection' and 'hemodynamic support' may in fact be contributing to end organ dysfunction. The practice of early goal-directed therapy for patients suffering from critical illness or undergoing surgery appears to offer no benefit over conventional therapy and may in fact be harmful. A new conceptual model for fluid resuscitation of critically ill patients has recently been developed and is explored here. SUMMARY: The practice of giving more fluid early and often is being replaced with new conceptual models of fluid resuscitation that suggest fluid therapy be 'personalized' to individual patient pathophysiology.

Paper or plastic? Simulation based evaluation of two versions of a cognitive aid for managing pediatric peri-operative critical events by anesthesia trainees: evaluation of the society for pediatric anesthesia emergency checklist.

Cognitive aids (CA), including emergency manuals and checklists, are tools designed to assist users in prioritizing and performing complex tasks during time sensitive, high stress situations (Marshall in Anesth Analgesia 117(5):1162-1171, 2013; Marshall and Mehra in Anaesthesia 69(7):669-677, 2014). The society for pediatric anesthesia (SPA) has developed a series of emergency checklists tailored for use by pediatric perioperative teams that cover a wide range of intraoperative critical events (Shaffner et al. in Anesth Analgesia 117(4):960-979, 2013). In this study, we evaluated user preferences for a CA (SPA checklist) using two different presentation formats, paper and electronic, during management of simulated critical events. Anesthesia trainees managed the simulated critical events under one of three randomized conditions: (1) memory alone, (2) with a paper version of the CA, (3) with an electronic version of the CA. Following participation in the simulated critical events, participants were asked to complete a survey regarding their experience using the different versions of the CA. The percentage of favorable responses for each format of the CA was compared using a mixed effects proportional odds model. There were 143 simulated events managed by 89 anesthesia trainees. Approximately one out of three trainees (electronic 29 %, paper 30 %) assigned to use the CA chose not to use it and completed the scenario from memory alone. The survey was completed by 68 % of participants, 58 % of trainees preferred the paper version and 35 % preferred the electronic version. All survey responses that reached statistical significance favored the paper version. In this study, anesthesia trainees had a favorable opinion of the content and perceived clinical relevance of both versions of the CA. In both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the paper version of the CA was preferred over the electronic version by participants. Despite overall favorable responses to the CA, a sizeable number of participants chose not to use either version the CA during the crisis.

The safety of modern anesthesia for children with long QT syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Patients with long QT syndrome (LQTS) may experience a clinical spectrum of symptoms, ranging from asymptomatic, through presyncope, syncope, and aborted cardiac arrest, to sudden cardiac death. Arrhythmias in LQTS are often precipitated by autonomic changes. This patient population is believed to be at high risk for perioperative arrhythmia, specifically torsades de pointes (TdP), although this perception is largely based on limited literature that predates current anesthetic drugs and standards of perioperative monitoring. We present the largest multicenter review to date of anesthetic management in children with LQTS. METHODS: We conducted a multicentered retrospective chart review of perioperative management of children with clinically diagnosed LQTS, aged 18 years or younger, who received general anesthesia (GA) between January 2005 and January 2010. Data from 8 institutions were collated in an anonymized database. RESULTS: One hundred three patients with LQTS underwent a total of 158 episodes of GA. The median (interquartile range) age and weight of the patients at the time of GA was 9 (3-15) years and 30.3 (15.4-54) kg, respectively. Surgery was LQTS-related in 81 (51%) GA episodes (including pacemaker, implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, and loop recorder insertions and revisions and lead extractions) and incidental in 77 (49%). ß-blocker therapy was administered to 76% of patients on the day of surgery and 47% received sedative premedication. Nineteen percent of patients received total IV anesthesia, 30% received total inhaled anesthesia, and the remaining 51% received a combination. No patient received droperidol. There were 5 perioperative episodes of TdP, all in neonates or infants, all in surgery that was LQTS-related, and none of which was overtly attributable to anesthetic regimen. Thus the incidence (95% confidence interval) of perioperative TdP in incidental versus LQTS-related surgery was 0/77 (0%; 0%-5%) vs 5/81 (6.2%; 2%-14%). CONCLUSIONS: With optimized perioperative management, modern anesthesia for incidental surgery in patients with LQTS is safer than anecdotal case report literature might suggest. Our series suggests that the risk of perioperative TdP is concentrated in neonates and infants requiring urgent interventions after failed first-line management of LQTS.

Long-term mortality associated with acute kidney injury in children following congenital cardiac surgery.

OBJECTIVE: Children undergoing congenital cardiac surgery (CCS) are at increased risk for acute kidney injury (AKI) due to a number of factors. Recent evidence suggests AKI may influence mortality beyond the immediate postoperative period and hospitalization. We sought to determine the association between renal failure and longer-term mortality in children following CCS. METHODS: Our Study population included all patients that underwent cardiac surgery at our institution during a period of 3 years from 2004 through 2006. The primary definition of acute renal injury was based on pRIFLE using estimated creatinine clearance (pRIFLE eCCL). RESULTS: Predictors of mortality. Age, single ventricle status, and renal failure as defined by pRIFLE stage F were associated with mortality. The hazard ratio for a patient with renal failure as defined by pRIFLE stage F was 3.82 (CI 1.89-7.75). Predictors of AKI as defined by pRIFLE. Duration of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and age were the only variables associated with pRIFLE by univariate analysis. However, in the ordinal or survival model, age was the only variable associated with renal failure as defined by pRIFLE. As patient age increases from 0.30 to 3.5 years, the risks of having renal injury (pRIFLE stage I) or failure (pRIFLE stage F) decreases (OR 0.44, CI 0.21-0.94). CONCLUSION: Mortality risk following CCS is increased in younger patients and those experiencing postoperative renal failure as defined by pRIFLE for a period of time that extends well beyond the immediate postoperative period and the time of hospitalization.

Team Dynamics in the Operating Room: How Is Team Performance Optimized?

Health care requires the effort of a team, and nowhere is this more evident than in the care of the surgical patient. No single clinician can perform all aspects of the continuum of surgical care. The basic operating room (OR) team consists of nurses, technicians, surgeons, and anesthesiologists with unique and well-defined roles and expertise in perioperative care. The modern OR team continues to grow and evolve in size, diversity, and complexity to meet the needs of growing patient and procedural complexity. This growing complexity makes achieving optimal team performance paramount and challenging.

Tools for Assessing the Performance of Pediatric Perioperative Teams During Simulated Crises: A Psychometric Analysis of Clinician Raters' Scores.

INTRODUCTION: The pediatric perioperative setting is a dynamic clinical environment where multidisciplinary interprofessional teams interact to deliver complex care to patients. This environment requires clinical teams to possess high levels of complex technical and nontechnical skills. For perioperative teams to identify and maintain clinical competency, well-developed and easy-to-use measures of competency are needed. METHODS: Tools for measuring the technical and nontechnical performance of perioperative teams were developed and/or identified, and a group of raters were trained to use the instruments. The trained raters used the tools to assess pediatric teams managing simulated emergencies. A psychometric analysis of the trained raters' scores using the different instruments was performed and the agreement between the trained raters' scores and a reference score was determined. RESULTS: Five raters were trained and scored 96 recordings of perioperative teams managing simulated emergencies. Scores from both technical skills assessment tools demonstrated significant reliability within and between ratings with the scenario-specific performance checklist tool demonstrating greater interrater agreement than scores from the global rating scale. Scores from both technical skills assessment tools correlated well with the other and with the reference standard scores. Scores from the Team Emergency Assessment Measure nontechnical assessment tool were more reliable within and between raters and correlated better with the reference standard than scores from the BARS tool. CONCLUSIONS: The clinicians trained in this study were able to use the technical performance assessment tools with reliable results that correlated well with reference scores. There was more variability between the raters' scores and less correlation with the reference standard when the raters used the nontechnical assessment tools. The global rating scale used in this study was able to measure the performance of teams across a variety of scenarios and may be generalizable for assessing teams in other clinical scenarios. The Team Emergency Assessment Measure tool demonstrated reliable measures when used to assess interprofessional perioperative teams in this study.

Creating a Quality Improvement Course for Undergraduate Medical Education: Practice What You Teach.

PROBLEM: More than half of U.S. medical schools have implemented curricula addressing quality improvement (QI); however, the evidence on which pedagogical methods are most effective is limited. APPROACH: As of January 2015, students at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine are required to take a QI course consisting of three 1-month-long (4 hours per week) blocks during their third or fourth year, in which student-identified faculty sponsors are paired with highly trained QI professionals from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The three blocks of the course include didactic instruction using Institute for Healthcare Improvement Open School modules, readings, weekly assignments, and experiential learning activities (i.e., students develop and implement a QI project with two Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles using a systematic approach that employs the principles of improvement science, which they present as a poster on the last day of the third block). OUTCOMES: From January 2015 to January 2017, 132 students completed all three blocks, resulting in 110 completed QI projects. On evaluations (distributed after each completed block), a majority of students rated the clinical relevance of the blocks highly (191/273; 70%), agreed the blocks contributed to their development as physicians (192/273; 70%), and reported the blocks motivated them to continue to learn more about QI (168/273; 62%). NEXT STEPS: The authors have applied QI methods to improve the course and will aim to assess the sustainability of the course by tracking clinical outcomes related to the projects and students' ongoing involvement in QI after graduation.

Evaluation of a Simpler Tool to Assess Nontechnical Skills During Simulated Critical Events.

INTRODUCTION: Management of critical events requires teams to employ nontechnical skills (NTS), such as teamwork, communication, decision making, and vigilance. We sought to estimate the reliability and provide evidence for the validity of the ratings gathered using a new tool for assessing the NTS of anesthesia providers, the behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS), and compare its scores with those of an established NTS tool, the Anaesthetists' Nontechnical Skills (ANTS) scale. METHODS: Six previously trained raters (4 novices and 2 experts) reviewed and scored 18 recorded simulated pediatric crisis management scenarios using a modified ANTS and a BARS tool. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated separately for the novice and expert raters, by scenario, and overall. RESULTS: The intrarater reliability of the ANTS total score was 0.73 (expert, 0.57; novice, 0.84); for the BARS tool, it was 0.80 (expert, 0.79; novice, 0.81). The average interrater reliability of BARS scores (0.58) was better than ANTS scores (0.37), and the interrater reliabilities of scores from novices (0.69 BARS and 0.52 ANTS) were better than those obtained from experts (0.47 BARS and 0.21 ANTS) for both scoring instruments. The Pearson correlation between the ANTS and BARS total scores was 0.74. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, reliability estimates were better for the BARS scores than the ANTS scores. For both measures, the intrarater and interrater reliability was better for novices compared with domain experts, suggesting that properly trained novices can reliably assess the NTS of anesthesia providers managing a simulated critical event. There was substantial correlation between the 2 scoring instruments, suggesting that the tools measured similar constructs. The BARS tool can be an alternative to the ANTS scale for the formative assessment of NTS of anesthesia providers.

Assessment Tools for Use During Anesthesia-Centric Pediatric Advanced Life Support Training and Evaluation.

BACKGROUND: Pediatric perioperative cardiac arrests are rare events that require rapid, skilled and coordinated efforts to optimize outcomes. We developed an assessment tool for assessing clinician performance during perioperative critical events termed Anesthesia-centric Pediatric Advanced Life Support (A-PALS). Here, we describe the development and evaluation of the A-PALS scoring instrument. METHODS: A group of raters scored videos of a perioperative team managing simulated events representing a range of scenarios and competency. We assessed agreement with the reference standard grading, as well as interrater and intrarater reliability. RESULTS: Overall, raters agreed with the reference standard 86.2% of the time. Rater scores concerning scenarios that depicted highly competent performance correlated better with the reference standard than scores from scenarios that depicted low clinical competence (P < 0.0001). Agreement with the reference standard was significantly (P < 0.0001) associated with scenario type, item category, level of competency displayed in the scenario, correct versus incorrect actions and whether the action was performed versus not performed. Kappa values were significantly (P < 0.0001) higher for highly competent performances as compared to lesser competent performances (good: mean = 0.83 [standard deviation = 0.07] versus poor: mean = 0.61 [standard deviation = 0.14]). The intraclass correlation coefficient (interrater reliability) was 0.97 for the raters' composite scores on correct actions and 0.98 for their composite scores on incorrect actions. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence for the validity of the A-PALS scoring instrument and demonstrates that the scoring instrument can provide reliable scores, although clinician performance affects reliability.