On June 16th, a bipartisan group of governors authored a letter to the Senate calling for a more open approach to legislating healthcare reform while heavily criticizing the House version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), or the so-called…
Category: Health
Ketamine for Chronic Pain Management
Ketamine is known to anesthesiologists for its unique anesthetic profile of relative hemodynamic stability (due to its sympathomimetic properties which compensate in most patients for its direct myocardial depressive effects), lack of respiratory depression, bronchodilation, and significant analgesic properties. It…
Big Data and Cybersecurity
In 2015, over 77% of office-based physicians reported using a certified EHR to manage clinical care.[i] From the smartphones in physicians’ pockets, to the vast EHR registries converging upon interoperability and the IoT medical devices in patients’ bodies, there are…
The Geriatric Patient and Perioperative Management
With the increasing elderly population in the United States, it becomes increasingly important to understand the physiologic changes of aging to better tailor anesthetic management of the geriatric patient. A review of changes by system is presented below. The CNS…
Difficult Airway Management
The difficult airway is a topic both ubiquitous and vaguely defined in clinical anesthesia practice. The most common characterization is a clinical situation in which a conventionally trained anesthesia provider has difficulty mask ventilating, intubating, or both. How one approaches…
A Typical Day for an Anesthesiologist
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…
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.…