the greatest amount of assistance toward saving time and reducing
risk. If you're looking to get more out of your anesthesia services,
make sure you equip your providers with the following tools.
1. airway visualization devices
The device that was most frequently mentioned, by a wide margin, as
improving efficiency at the head of the surgical table was airway visu-
alization technology such as video laryngoscopes and video-equipped
stylets.
"The video laryngoscope systems now available have really revolu-
tionized difficult airway management, expanded airway resources and
improved patient safety," says Gary Friedman, MD, president of the
New Hampshire Society of Anesthesiologists and vice chairman of the
anesthesiology department at Southern New Hampshire Medical
Center in Nashua, N.H.
Video-assisted laryngoscopy "does take some stress from ugly air-
ways," says another provider. "I can only count on 3 fingers the times
it has been a lifesaver, but those 3 fingers are grateful."
Once primarily seen as a tool for training intubation skills, video
laryngoscopes
are now often
the first choice
of providers
when establish-
ing an airway,
their wide-
spread popular-
ity due to the
ability to "see
around the cor-
ner" of respira-
tory anatomy.
7 3
February 2015 | O U T PAT I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T
z FOR ALL TO SEE The video laryngoscope, once a training tool,
is now a go-to device for challenging and routine intubations.
D.
John
Doyle,
MD,
PhD
