The Difficult Airway Navigator: Development and Implementation of a Health Care System’s Approach to Difficult Airway Documentation Utilizing the Electronic Health Record

Careful airway risk assessment and procedural planning are vital to ensure patients' safety during airway management. Patients with known procedural difficulty during previous airway management or new anatomical changes pose challenges and risks. To improve communication and the value of documented information regarding difficult airway management for future clinical encounters, we utilized existing electronic health record functions to develop a "difficult airway Navigator." We describe this tool's creation and implementation, which allows clinicians to readily review past airway information and efficiently create difficult airway notes, bedside signs, flags, and orders.