Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety: Healthcare Provider Survey Finds All Patients Should Be Monitored After Surgery

CHICAGO, Oct. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In a recently conducted survey, almost all healthcare providers (90%) say that "continuous electronic monitoring of oxygenation and ventilation should be available and considered for all patients". This monitoring "would reduce the likelihood of unrecognized clinically significant opioid-induced depression of ventilation in the postoperative period."

Almost 300 people responded to the survey, of which more than 97% were healthcare providers.

Dr. Marc Popovich (Medical Director, Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Cleveland Clinic) expresses surprise over these results. "I am quite shocked that the disagree group is that high! The question asked whether continuous monitoring should be 'available and considered' for all patients. What this survey result is saying is that 10% do not have monitoring available and it is not even being considered for their patients after surgery."

To improve patient safety and health outcomes, the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) recently released recommendations calling for continuous electronic monitoring of oxygenation and ventilation. For a link to APSF recommendations and expert commentary on them, please see http://wp.me/p1JikT-2L

"This electronic monitoring," explains Dr. Popovich, "would entail the use of pulse oximetry which measures the amount of oxygen in the blood and capnograph which measures the concentration of carbon dioxide that a person breathes out in exhaled air."

Moreover, as Dr. Moises Auron (Department of Hospital Medicine and the Center for Pediatric Hospital Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic) says, "This intervention is easy. Simply clamp on the pulse oximeter and hook up the capnograph."

Unfortunately, this easy process is not being done all the time and patient safety may be compromised.

"I get too many calls from patients whose family members have died from post-op opiate overdose," says Helen Haskell, who is a co-founder of The Empowered Patient Coalition, whose mission is to "allow patients and their advocates to assume a greater role in improving the safety and the quality of their health care."(1)

"From a patient's point of view, this sort of error is incomprehensible, because it is so fundamental. People should be able to assume that basic safety precautions have been taken when they are in the hospital," says Ms. Haskell.

About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) is an advocacy group devoted to improving patient health and safety. PPAHS is composed of physicians, patients, individuals, and organizations. For a list of our supporters, please see http://wp.me/P1JikT-7

For a pdf copy of the survey report, please click on the link at the top of our homepage: http://ppahs.wordpress.com/

(1) http://www.empoweredpatientcoalition.org/about-us/our-mission

SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety