Transitions From Hospital to Home
Worldwide more than 200 million surgeries are performed each year; in the United States more than 50 million inpatient procedures occur annually. In 2009, the World Health Organization demonstrated that…
Delivering Value Based Care: The UK Perspective
Introduction: Rising Demand and Resource Constraint One of the few constants throughout health-care is an inexorable rise in demand. This rise has been ongoing for many years and is driven…
Improving Health-Care Quality Through Measurement
“Wherever we see systematic measurement of results in health-care–no matter what the country–we see those results improve.” Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review (October 2013) Extensive evidence exists demonstrating that…
Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction and Delirium
Introduction Since the inception of anesthesia changed and expanded surgery, some patients have experienced changes in cognitive function postoperatively. Elderly patients are at higher risk of these changes in neurocognitive…
Economic Analysis of Perioperative Optimization
The goal of this chapter is to make the following points: 1. Taxpayers, employers, and employees demand that medicine deliver better value. Physicians need evidence-based medicine to establish which interventions…
Role of Palliative Care
Defining Palliative Care Palliative care is defined by the World Health Organization as “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated…
Improving Pain and Outcomes in the Perioperative Setting
The Growth of Unidimensional Pain Assessment Tools A subjective and personal experience, pain remains difficult to quantify within the confines of empirically based medical tradition. Regardless of this challenge, however,…
Endocrine and Electrolyte Disorders
Introduction Perioperative electrolyte and endocrine disorders are dealt with by anesthesiologists on a daily basis. With the rising incidence of diabetes and obesity and their relation to increased morbidity in…
Acute Respiratory Failure
Definition Respiratory failure occurs when the lungs fail to oxygenate the arterial blood adequately and/or fail to prevent carbon dioxide retention. Although the definition does not contain any absolute values,…
Perioperative Protection of the Pregnant Woman
Introduction Maternal safety surrounding nonobstetrical surgery, labor, and delivery has been seen as one of the greatest triumphs of 20th century medicine. Within living memory, nearly 1% of women in…
