A large proportion of anaesthetic complications with medicolegal consequences are potentially avoidable, highlighting the role of human factors and monitoring.
Most medicolegal anaesthetic complications appear avoidable; hypothesis-generating for human factors interventions, needs prospective confirmation before practice change.
Retrospectively 120 anaesthetic complications with potential medicolegal consequences were reviewed. Seven deaths occurred. Eighty percent of the complications were potentially avoidable. Of the complications 4.4% resulted in major morbidity and 82.3% in intermediate morbidity. Dental injuries were reported with an annual frequency of six. The use of pulse oximetry and/or capnography could possibly have prevented 18% of all complications apart from dental injuries. Ten cases were reported to the National Swedish Board of Health and Welfare; four cases resulted in disciplinary consequences. The influence of human factors on the development of complications is stressed.
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Wang et al. (1992) studied this question.
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