Automatic record keeping in anaesthesia--a nine-year Italian experience

Area of Science:

• Anesthesiology
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• The Buccheri La Ferla Hospital in Palermo initiated an anesthesia information management project in 1986.
• The project aimed to develop a computerized anesthesia workstation for clinical use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness and impact of a computerized anesthesia information management system in daily clinical practice.
• To assess the system's ability to automate data collection, manage anesthetic procedures, and improve patient care.

Main Methods:

• Implemented a computerized anesthesia workstation with automatic physiological signal collection via analog-digital conversion or serial data transfer.
• Utilized a centralized display for monitoring anesthetic procedures and an on-line help function for drug administration and calculations.
• Integrated preoperative data transfer from portable PCs and established a nine-year patient database accessible across workstations.

Main Results:

• The system is in daily clinical use, comprising eight workstations and two portable PCs, managing 16,000 patient records.
• Automated data collection with one-minute trend resolution, centralized displays, and integrated preoperative/perioperative data.
• Positive feedback from 17 anesthesiologists and 24 nurses; no legal or administrative controversies reported over nine years.

Conclusions:

• Computerized anesthesia information management systems significantly improve the quality of patient care.
• The developed system successfully achieved its goals, demonstrating the benefits of computer utilization in anesthesiology.