Morbidity and mortality for alternate-site anesthesia care

The bibliography contains very few references from anesthesia literature and a preponderance of citations from emergency medicine, radiology and pediatrics journals. The reviewed publications include studies addressing the relation of drug type and dosages to morbidity and mortality in alternate site locations. These studies approach the issue of safety through retrospective analysis of techniques that are associated with acceptably low morbidity. The occurrence of adverse anesthetic events within formalized sedation programs is also reviewed. The low morbidity suggests that the trend of out of the operating room anesthetic and sedative use will continue. The ability of formalized sedation programs to establish and enforce standards of practice as well as to continually collect quality assurance data is a strong endorsement for their continuation.