Developing protocols for administering anesthesia

Abstract

The industrial sector especially the aviation industry has shown the world that by using check lists and protocols, disasters could be prevented. It is now a common practice in many fields to establish protocols to standardize the practices. Such standardization makes the processes similar despite various users practicing the procedure. Although in anesthesia, there are several guidelines suggested by bodies such as the American society of anesthesiologists and Indian society of anaesthetists, strict protocols are not available even for the commonly undertaken procedures. Anesthesia is akin in many respects to flying an aircraft. The induction of anesthesia compared to take off of an aircraft, maintenance to cruising and extubation to landing. It was therefore thought that anesthesia similar to aircraft flying could be made safer by using protocols and checklists. However it may take a while for the practice of anesthesia to get to the “6 Sigma” safety that the airline industry currently enjoys. It is our effort to standardize the commonly performed surgeries at our institution. “The protocols in Anesthesia” emerged as a result of the back breaking work of the consultants in the department of anesthesia. The intention of this effort was to standardize the practice of anesthesia in our institution and to showcase the benefits of such standardization. It is hoped that other institution interested in standardizing their practice could formulate their own protocols. It is also desirable that a “copy and paste” of other protocols in unlikely to benefit the end users. The authors wish to bring forth the point that customized protocols should emerge with the efforts of the users themselves. It becomes more pertinent to suit one's protocol to the prevailing infrastructure, availability of therapeutic agents and economic conditions. The authors sincerely hope this endeavour might stimulate others to put their systems in place, if not pre-existing