Why the study?
What is the duration of apnoea and lack of monitoring during patient transfer from the anaesthetic room to the operating theatre?
What is the duration of apnoea and lack of monitoring during patient transfer from the anaesthetic room to the operating theatre?
The transfer of patients from the anaesthetic room to the operating theatre involves significant periods of apnoea and lack of monitoring, representing a potential window for patient harm.
Signals potential harm during unmonitored transfer; leaves open whether protocol changes reduce desaturation risk.
We observed practice during transfer of 80 patients from anaesthetic room to operating theatre, to determine the duration of apnoea and the time without monitoring during the transfer process. Median (IQR [range]) time from disconnection of the breathing system in the anaesthetic room to the first breath in theatre was 54 (44-65 [27-196]) s, and from disconnection of the pulse oximetry probe to the first reading in theatre was 90 (74-103 [44-182]) s. In four patients (5%) arterial oxygen saturation fell to 94%, with the greatest desaturation observed 11%. The transfer process may represent a window of opportunity for the occurrence of harm or the first step in a chain of events leading to harm, and is difficult to justify on patient safety grounds.
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Broom et al. (2006) studied this question.
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