[The usefulness of system analysis to reduce the anaesthetic risk (author's transl)]

The attempt is made to increase the safety of anaestesia by the method of categorizing separate risk factors. It is very important to minimize these risk factors, but I do not think this is the way to do it. I propose to tackle this problem by the method of systems analysis. Systems analysis would also result in a certain levelling out of the demands made on both the staff and the equipment of an anesthesiology department and help to build a bridge between us and our industrial supplies. Systems analysis rejects the examination of separate risk factors in order to study the system as a whole and the functional cohesion of the various elements within it. In anesthesia, there are 3 different systems to be studied: the induction phase, the phase of true anesthesia, the recovery phase. The induction phase is discussed in this paper as an example of the thought processes and steps involved in a study by means of systems analysis.