Electronic Anesthesia Records - Why Aren't We Using Them ?

Over 30 years ago, Anesthesia was one of the first specialties to actually explore computerization of the clinical episode, according to the Anesthesia Informatics by Jerry Stonemetz and Keith Ruskin,"Early developments at Duke University demonstrated that the entire anesthetic event could be captured electronically." And according to these authors, by the end of 2006, anesthesia information systems (AIMS) had penetrated less than 10 % of the market.

Look at this picture of a 1978 Ohio Anesthesia machine. Would you use this machine to provide anesthesia today ? Of course not so why do we continue to hand write our anesthesia records when the technology has been available to automate this tedious task for many years.

A popular urban myth is that anesthesia providers were reluctant to give up control of the record. We fear the aberrant vitals signs that occur will be questioned by "others" and lead to quality assurance concerns, peer review issues and potentially have medical legal implications. REALLY ??? Fear of observance of our anesthesia records has kept technology at bay for over 30 freakin' years ?

<--Interior of a 1987 Porsche> "Gravenstein and his colleagues edited the first publication about computerized anesthesia records in 1987. Gravenstein points out that simply recording what happened does not allow us to analyze the quality of the anesthetic delivered. Only through detailed analysis of volumes of raw data are we able to extrapolate the effective quality delivered. Ideally, the analysis will become simpler once the entire anesthetic experience is digitized." Anesthesia Infomatics  (What if Porsches still looked like this)

Think about the Dr. Gravenstein's comments for a minute. From the beginning the focus wasn't to make the recording of an anesthetic easier, more accurate or more legible, they wanted VOLUMES OF RAW DATA  to allow them to JUDGE the anesthetic provided. I guess the urban myth has some foundation of truth. They were out to get us. Now they have their volumes of raw data, which manufactures are hopelessly trying to interface with a variety of Hospital Information Systems, and the overwhelming majority of hospitals and anesthesia providers are still recording anesthesia records by hand !

Enough !!! It is time for each of us to engage in this discussion. We can not let managers, IT, academia, manufacturers to determine the best way for us to record our anesthetic. The technology is out there, we simply must decide the best way to harness the technology to improve our record keeping capabilities, and allow us to focus on our patients.

Next, let's explore the possibilities...

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••>