A New Chapter for STA and ASA: Strengthening the Foundations of Anesthesia Technology

The Society for Technology in Anesthesia (STA) has enjoyed a close relationship with ASA for decades and is now recognized as an Affiliate Subspecialty Society of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. This milestone reinforces STA's visibility, credibility, and influence within the broader anesthesiology community. This recognition expands opportunities to showcase STA-led education and innovation, strengthens collaboration, and elevates the role of technology in advancing perioperative care.From its earliest years, members of STA have established a strong presence at ASA meetings through recurrent sponsored panels, ASA committees, the ASA House of Delegates, and ongoing contributions to technology-focused programming during annual meetings. Founded in 1988, STA fostered a community to address one of the specialty's most important questions: how advances in patient safety emerge through the combined work of clinicians, inventors, and educators. The society exists to improve patient care through the application of technology in anesthesia, supported by education, research, and collaboration. Its history includes early leadership in technologies that are now foundational to perioperative safety, including pulse oximetry, modern anesthesia workstations, and advances in mechanical ventilation. Across decades, the mission has remained consistent: not technology for its own sake, but technology that aids clinicians in the care of their patients. Some of STA's most important work has been remarkably forward thinking. In 1992, the society described the formation of a committee to explore implementation of a national anesthetic database. STA led digital integration to improve patient care decades before electronic anesthesia records became standard practice. The society understood that such a database would have to meet the needs of clinicians, administrators, insurers, and risk management groups, while also addressing security and sensitivity of information. That vision anticipated and addressed many of the issues that define perioperative innovation today: data interoperability, clinical informatics, quality measurement, data governance, cybersecurity, and learning health systems. The fact that STA was asking these questions in the early 1990s speaks to the society's enduring ability to see where the field is going and to help shape it. Through leadership in the ASA Committee on Electronic Media and Information Technologies – now the Committee on Informatics and Information Technologies – STA members provided strategic guidance to the ASA Board of Directors that helped lay the foundational work for the development of the Anesthesia Quality Institute and the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry. Today, STA remains a place where ideas meet methods and methods meet reality. It brings together physicians, scientists, engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, trainees, and industry partners to test assumptions, refine concepts, and move innovation toward clinical use. Early STA history emphasized monitoring technologies, computer programming, human factors engineering, and simulation. More recent meetings have expanded those conversations to include artificial intelligence, implementation science, regulatory considerations, the design of user interfaces, and open-source approaches to education and device support. The STA community is at the heart of the society. Year after year, members describe the value of finding colleagues who are curious, collaborative, and willing to work across disciplines. Relationships grow into mentorship. Mentorship grows into collaboration. Collaboration produces innovation. That pattern is one of STA's defining strengths. The society fosters a community of engaged individuals who serve as change agents in their own domains of expertise and practice. Whether they work in clinical care, engineering, education, informatics, device development, or implementation, they bring ideas back to their own institutions and help move better practices into the real world. The annual meetings bring that vibrant community together. The 2026 meeting in Tampa, organized around the theme “Crossing the Chasm,” focused on the persistent gap between innovation and clinical adoption. Sessions addressed implementation, change management, medical device development, user interface design, and the realities of translating technology into clinical care. The meeting also featured high-energy abstract presentations and trainee engagement, reflecting STA's continued investment in education and new ideas. The STA Engineering Challenge is one of the clearest expressions of that innovation and investment. For years, it has offered trainees a chance to explore practical perioperative problems through engineering and design. In 2026, the challenge focused on medical device discovery in the perioperative environment and featured browser-based and AI-enabled tools developed by trainees and designed to help clinicians identify unfamiliar equipment and access practical guidance. The annual engineering challenge is an example of the kind of work that STA is built to support: multidisciplinary, applied, creative, and closely tied to patient care. STA has long recognized the need for mentorship and opportunity. This need includes: 1) providing spaces where trainees and practicing anesthesiologists can develop new skills, test ideas, and find collaborators, 2) creating communities that welcome both technical depth and practical problem-solving, and 3) supporting mentors who can help others navigate the path from concept to implementation. Looking ahead, the charge remains clear. STA will continue to offer a welcoming community for innovators, inventors, and high-agency individuals who are driven to move the specialty forward, people who think clearly, act with purpose, and drive change and adoption of practices that improve patient care. The society's new affiliate subspecialty society status creates fresh opportunities to bring engaged people together, foster meaningful collaboration, support mentorship, and translate innovation into safer perioperative care. That work will continue at the 2027 STA Annual Meeting, January 14–17, at the W in Scottsdale, Arizona. Colleagues across anesthesiology, engineering, computer science, industry, and related disciplines are encouraged to participate. STA welcomes abstract submissions that highlight technology-related research, education, and innovation in informatics, device development, and perioperative care. Students and trainees at any stage are also encouraged to join the Engineering Challenge by partnering with mentors to tackle a practical clinical problem through design, engineering, and collaboration. The future of anesthesia technology depends on building spaces where new voices can contribute, test ideas, and grow into the next generation of leaders. Technology will continue to shape medicine. The question is how the specialty of anesthesiology will pivot and adapt to guide it. STA has a long and successful track record of answering that question. With this new chapter and with a continuing focus on building a community of mentorship, collaboration, and innovation, STA promises to continue to guide our specialty into the future.Julia A. Galvez Delgado, MD, MBI, FASA, President, Society for Technology in Anesthesia, and Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.Hannah Lonsdale, MBChB, FRCA, 2026 Annual Meeting Co-Chair, Society for Technology in Anesthesia, ASA Committee on Informatics and Information Technologies, and Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Vanderbilt Health, Nashville, Tennessee.Asad Siddiqui, MD, MEd, FRCPC, At Large International Director, 2026 Annual Meeting Co-Chair, Society for Technology in Anesthesia, Assistant Professor, and Consultant Pediatric Anesthesiologist, Department of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Ori Gottlieb, MD, FASA, ASA Committee on Informatics and Information Technologies, and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.