Anesthesia machines. Demystifying their function

The goal of all anesthesia care is to ensure the safest possible experience for the patient. Tremendous advances have been made in design, safety aspects, and monitoring. Advances also have been made in acquiring and quantifying physiologic data during surgery; however, this abundance of information can confuse as well as inform. Recent efforts have been directed toward integrating alarms and monitoring devices to detect high-risk situations (eg, airway disconnect leading to hypoxemia, bradycardia, and eventually cardiac arrest). Commensurate with advances in biomedical instrumentation and ergonomics is preservation of the fundamental concept of monitoring--that the anesthetist/anesthesiologist is the most essential monitor to integrate information and develop a rational plan of intervention.