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AAP updates recommendations on safe administration of anesthesia
The AAP’s Section on Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine provided updated recommendations for safe anesthesia practices among children in a policy statement recently published in Pediatrics.
“Anesthesiologists and the institutions in which they practice need to have a structured assessment of all the resources at hand — personnel, equipment, facilities, laboratories and ancillary services — to make sure all the pieces are in place to provide the safest possible pediatric anesthesia care,” David M. Polaner, MD, FAAP, professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said in a press release. “The AAP policy statement advises institutions on how they should tailor the depth of these resources to the complexity and ages of pediatric patients they serve.”
The policy statement is intended to update and supplement the 2014 American Society of Anesthesiologists’ standard guidelines statement and emphasizes the role of building a well-rounded pediatric anesthesiology team and setting. Polaner and colleagues stated that hospital anesthesiology departments should decide on an annual minimum number of procedures that must be performed in order to maintain optimal performance. They also recommended a requirement for anesthesiologists working with neonates and children with medical complications to devote at least 30% of their clinical practice to these patients.
Other notable recommendations from the AAP report included:
- implementing a patient care facility policy in the anesthesia environment;
- tailoring pain management strategies to types of surgeries and procedures;
- educating postanesthesia recovery nurses in intraoperative pediatric anesthesia management; and
- establishing a separate preoperative area for pediatric patients and families.
According to the statement, children aged 1 month to 1 year are four times more likely to have anesthesia-related cardiac arrest, than patients aged 1 to 18 years. The risks also are heightened for children with existing medical conditions.
“Important facility-based component issues for the perioperative anesthesia environment include the training and experience of the health care team, the resources committed to both the medical and psychosocial care of infants and children in the perioperative period and pediatric-specific techniques … ,” Polaner and colleagues wrote. “Patient care facilities and their medical staff members who want to provide pediatric anesthesia care must be able to address all these issues in a competent manner.” – by David Costill
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
