Quality assessment of anesthesia service at Siriraj Hospital

As part of a quality assurance program, the quality of the anesthesia service at Siriraj Hospital was assessed by using a newly developed data collecting system to find the incidence of clinical indicators. During a 7-month period (June-December 2001), 14,036 anesthetics were included for evaluation. The mortality rate within 24 hours and CPR rate during anesthesia were equal at 20.6/ 10,000. Other clinical indicators were major anesthetic complications (mainly airway, respiratory and cardiovascular system) 144.8/10,000, drug mishaps and adverse drug reactions 6.4/10,000, anesthetic equipment related complications 3.5/10,000 and patient's dissatisfaction 30.6/10,000. Patterns of some complications were also reported. The implications of the results; comparison to international standard, prioritization of the problems, baseline information before intervention, recognition of complication patterns and guidance to future system management and research projects; were discussed. In conclusion, we demonstrated the effective data collecting system and its results and implication for quality assurance program.