Newswise — October 3, 2014 – A checklist for trauma and emergency anesthesia, published last year in Anesthesia & Analgesia, has been included in the US Department of Defense's Joint Theater Trauma System Clinical Practice Guideline for trauma anesthesia.

Developed by a group of experts from anesthesiology departments across the United States, the checklist originally appeared in the November, 2013, issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia. The lead author was Dr Joshua M. Tobin of David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The checklist was integrated into the newly developed Joint Theater Trauma System Clinical Practice Guideline for Trauma Anesthesia (PDF link), approved in June, 2014.

Checklist to Guide Trauma Anesthesia Care in US Military SettingsAs part of the new Joint Theater Trauma System guideline, the checklist will help to guide emergency and trauma anesthesia across US military medical settings, including care for combat injuries. It provides a quick reference to essential steps at each phase of trauma anesthesia—from the time the operating room is notified to expect casualties, to the patient's emergence from anesthesia.

A technique borrowed from aviation, standardized checklists are increasingly used to guide several aspects of complex medical care. Having a checklist can be especially useful in emergency settings. "The checklist assures that critical steps are not missed," Dr Tobin and coauthors write. "Checklists are easy. Missing critical steps can be deadly."

The newly developed clinical practice guideline outlines an approach incorporating the induction and maintenance of anesthesia into ongoing resuscitation during surgery for personnel with severe trauma. It guides all members of the military trauma surgical team through the five steps of the trauma anesthesia process: pre-induction, induction, and maintenance of anesthesia, resuscitation, and postoperative care.

The guideline also includes steps for performance improvement monitoring, to ensure that expected outcomes of trauma anesthesia care are being met and that the performance/adherence measures are being followed. It was approved after an extensive review process involving the anesthesiology specialty leaders of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as trauma advisors of the respective branches.

"We congratulate our authors on having their trauma anesthesia checklist incorporated into this important new military clinical practice guideline," comments Dr. Steven L. Shafer of Stanford University, Editor-in-Chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia. "This is an outstanding example of the evidence-based quality improvement processes that have led to the tremendous recent advances in surgical care and resuscitation of combat casualties."

Read the article in Anesthesia & Analgesia.

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About Anesthesia & AnalgesiaAnesthesia & Analgesia was founded in 1922 and was issued bi-monthly until 1980, when it became a monthly publication. A&A is the leading journal for anesthesia clinicians and researchers and includes more than 500 articles annually in all areas related to anesthesia and analgesia, such as cardiovascular anesthesiology, patient safety, anesthetic pharmacology, and pain management. The journal is published on behalf of the IARS by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), a division of Wolters Kluwer Health.

About the IARSThe International Anesthesia Research Society is a nonpolitical, not-for-profit medical society founded in 1922 to advance and support scientific research and education related to anesthesia, and to improve patient care through basic research. The IARS contributes nearly $1 million annually to fund anesthesia research; provides a forum for anesthesiology leaders to share information and ideas; maintains a worldwide membership of more than 15,000 physicians, physician residents, and others with doctoral degrees, as well as health professionals in anesthesia related practice; sponsors the SmartTots initiative in partnership with the FDA; and publishes the monthly journal Anesthesia & Analgesia in print and online.