Ambulatory surgery
Massive and increasing cost pressure urges many hospitals to look for alternatives to expensive in-patient surgery.
Anaesthesia
The 33rd International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine
Belgium – Last year, the annual ISICEM event attracted almost 6,000 participants from 101 countries. Its chairman, Professor Jean-Louis Vincent, from the Intensive Care Medicine Department in Erasme University Hospital, Brussels, offered EH a few reasons for its continuing success.
Article • Still a challenge
Perioperative anaesthesia for patients with heart failure
Can an anaesthetist treat a patient with heart failure (HF) without any specialist knowledge of cardiology? That was the question posed by Dr Florian Weis, from the Clinic of Anaesthesiology at the University Hospital of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, when lecturing on perioperative management of this patient group.
GE unveils avance CS2 Anaesthesia Delivery System
Leveraging more than 100 years of anaesthesia expertise, GE Healthcare introduces ecoFLOW technology option to help guide clinicians in agent delivery, while providing economic and environmental benefits.
Safer sleep, safer sugar
Ensuring the safety of hospitalised patients is vital – and brought under a particularly strong focus in anaesthesiology. Launched in 2010, the Helsinki Declaration provided a further boost. Report: Holger Zorn
Neonatologists recommend volume-targeted ventilation for premature babies
Volume-targeted ventilated premature babies have a higher survival rate and suffer less ventilation-related lung damage – this is the result of a survey amongst international neonatologists.
Breathing space
If the hopes of inventors are to be believed, in around 20 years’ time there will be ‘real artificial lungs -- for now the endpoint of a history that began 84 years ago with the invention of the iron lung. Until then, non-invasive and invasive mechanical respiration will continue to dominate the hospital, complemented by extracorporeal procedures for blood oxygenation and decarbonisation,…
Post-operative care
The list of post-operative complications is long. Most common are fever, chest infection, pneumonia, wound infection, bleeding or deep vein thrombosis. As these post-surgical complications can range from minor, self-limiting problems to major life-threatening events, their definition and severity staging can be challenging.
Doom and gloom but yes, there’s hope and even health-promoting laughter…
Health-promoting laughter… As our year ends amid depressing global economic uncertainty, budget and staff cutbacks, threats to healthcare workers’ pensions and much else, some events shine brightly through, writes EH Editor Brenda Marsh. ‘These confirm that vision, courage and laughter can indeed cure many ills’
Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology
Step by step, the Helsinki Declaration is being implemented: Great Britain and the Netherlands have made it law. In Germany, it is voluntary. Report: Susanne Werner
Of mounting importance
They are rarely noticed but nevertheless they carry a lot of weight in a hospital: intelligent mounting solutions for medical equipment and monitors. While the eyes of physicians, nurses and patients alike tend to be fixed on the device, hardly anybody ever looks at the way, the device is fixed to the wall or the ceiling. The engineers of CIM med, based in Munich, Germany, however did have a…
A better sleep in the operating theatre
Xenon anaesthesia not only preserves the heart and circulation but also prevents post-operative delirium. The high cost of the gas is made up for by a shorter length of sta. Report: Holger Zorn
Human error – or a fault in the system?
Medication errors sit among the top ten causes of harm to patients. They can, of course, occur in any department, but it’s still a surprise that they happen as frequently in anaesthetics departments, considering anaesthetists’ expertise is in handling tricky medication. However, apparently they are not the fault of the professional, but of the nature of the processes. Report: Karoline…
GE Healthcare at Euroanaesthesia
Clinicians all over the world use GE Healthcare products and solutions to anesthetize patients. The breakthrough ideas of a small Ohio company in 1910, the predecessor to the anesthesia division of GE Healthcare, have evolved into innovations that continue to open new frontiers in anesthesia. Today, GE Healthcare provides anesthesia technologies in many countries worldwide, collaborating closely…
Your map of anaesthesia
Dräger SmartPilot View is a software, which, for the first time, provides a two-dimensional representation of the current and the forecasted course of anaesthesia. Similar to a GPS device, this "map of anaesthesia" shows the anaesthetist at which stage of the anaesthesia the patient is. Like a pilot, the software supports the anaesthetist in optimally guiding the patient through the anaesthesia.
'Smart' patient monitoring needed to improve workflow
In the operating room, a surgeon typically is surrounded by 11 different medical devices, « and they all keep beeping at us, » complains Dr. Martin Schuster at Charité University Hospital in Berlin. «Which one of these alarms is important, » he asks, adding that blood pressure, oxygen saturation and ventillator alerts can sound between 10 and 12 times during each case.
A compact and clever anaesthesia unit
ARCUS -- It’s a portable, fully electronic, stand-alone inhalation anaesthesia unit that offers the electronic gas mixer EGAMIX. The wall version is used for induction. Compared to a conventional mechanical rotameter, this machine simplifies work considerably due to the fully automatic electronic control and supervision of the adjusted parameters, the manufacturer EKU Elektronik GmbH. reports.
Vexing questions for anaesthetists
How can postoperative delirium and postoperative cognitive dysfunction be avoided? How is it best to address the problem of epilepsy? How can anaesthetists cope better with a patient death under anaesthesia? These difficult questions were among many addressed by specialists at HAI 2009, the annual conference of the German Society for Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (DGAI). Report:…
The eZono 3000 portable ultrasound system
A portable system designed for anaesthetists, the eZono accelerates the learning curve with the manufacturer’s patented Cue Cards, a multi-media learning and workflow tool for vascular access and regional anaesthesia - combined with excellent image quality, the manufacturer points out.
Pain therapy for urological patients
Pain is the most common symptom of any illness thus having an alerting function to evoke protective responses. If tissue damage has happened as a consequence of surgery, obstruction, injuries, or cancer a cascade of changes in the peripheral and central nervous system occurs leading to physical inactivation, an increase of morbidity thus delaying hospital stay and treatment costs.
Dräger Award for Intensive Care Medicine 2009
At this year's Euroanaesthesia 2009, in Milan, the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) presented for the third time the “Dräger Award for Intensive Care Medicine”. The 10,000 Euro prize went to the working group studying “Effects of ventilation with 100% oxygen during early hyperdynamic porcine fecal peritonitis” in the Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital Ulm, Germany.
Professor warns of despondency among specialist nurses
Surgery generates between 25-40% of hospital revenues, and along with surgeons, specialist nurses are vital to the success of operating theatres. It is thus alarming to find that a survey of 600 theatre nurses has revealed that almost 50% of them would not choose the same profession again.
The Accreditation Council for Education
During its 5th international congress (held in Denmark in April), the European Operating Room Nurses Organisation (EORNA) launched the Accreditation Council for Education (ACE) "Educational and training programmes in the nursing sector need alignment and development on a European level," explained EORNA President Irini Antoniadou. "From 1997 to the present, EORNA achieved a curriculum for a…