A physician anesthesiologist starts preparing for his or her cases the day before surgery. This includes a thorough review of each patient’s medical history. Devising a thoughtful anesthesia plan requires the anesthesiologist to consider all patient factors in conjunction with…
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Costs of Data Collection for Measuring Performance in Regards to Anesthesia
The fundamental purpose of healthcare is to achieve good health outcomes for patients (Murphy, 2012). Clinical outcomes are measured and published to ultimately improve healthcare quality for individuals. The role of performance measurement in healthcare is thought to ensure a…
How Does Intellewave Assess Heart Rate Variability and Help with Anesthesia?
In the past decade, heart rate variability (HRV) has emerged as an intriguing parameter for interrogation of autonomic nervous system functioning. It relies on the physiologic phenomenon of changing heart rate with respiration, a process heavily reliant on input from…
How Does the IntuiTap Medical Device Help Physicians with Procedures?
Spinal blocks are administered by anesthesiologists for a variety of lower body surgeries including genitourinary tract procedures, cesarean sections, orthopedic hip or knee replacements, and lower abdominal surgeries like hernia repairs. Spinal anesthesia is achieved by a single shot of…
Financial Costs to Hospitals from Complications
In today’s world with the intersection of healthcare and economics in the spotlight, there is huge pressure on hospitals to reduce spending. With sometimes uncertain reimbursement, keeping costs low is vital to maintain both healthy patients and a healthy budget.…
How Does Anesthesia Work?
Every so often, a curious patient will ask how the drugs they receive work exactly. Seeing as “No one knows for sure” is hardly a reassuring response, I typically go into a simplified discussion of intravenous agents and their known…
Does Telehealth Increase Spending?
A new study suggests that direct-to-consumer telehealth may increase access to care but does not decrease spending. Direct-to-consumer telehealth offers patients access to a physician via telephone or videoconferencing. Health plans and employers generally view telehealth as a way to…
Out of Operating Room Anesthesia
Much of what makes modern anesthesia carry a lower risk than the anesthetics of yesteryear relates to consistency: standard monitors, evidence based guidelines, the ready availability of equipment and personnel to be able to respond to an emergency. Few things…
Ketamine in Chronic Pain Management
In recent decades, chronic pain has increasingly been diagnosed, resulting in many patients seeking medical attention. Both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic therapies are used to treat chronic pain, and an individualized approach tends to be based on trial and error. Irrespective…
Anesthetic Management of Patients Undergoing Spine Surgery
Spine surgery is performed for a variety of conditions including scoliosis, malignancy, herniated disks, degenerative spine disease, and spinal stenosis. The scope of surgical techniques range from quick minimally invasive single-level procedures to prolonged operations involving multiple spinal levels with…