BJA Advance Access published online on August 17, 2007
British Journal of Anaesthesia, doi:10.1093/bja/aem240
Simulation as an additional tool for investigating the performance of standard operating procedures in anaesthesia
1 Department of Anaesthesiology, Emergency and Intensive Care Medicine, University of Goettingen, Robert-Koch-Strasse 40, 37075 Goettingen, Germany
2 Department of Psychology
3 Department of Anaesthesiology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
4 Department of Anaesthesiology, Siloah and St Trudpert, Pforzheim, Germany
* Corresponding author. E-mail: yzausig{at}zari.de
Background: In medicine, the use of standard operating procedures (SOPs) is often evaluated using questionnaires (QUES). However, QUES can have limitations with regard to method, thus leading to errors. Simulation (SIM) offers another opportunity for evaluation. We hypothesized that medical errors in the evaluation of SOPs using QUES could be detected by SIM, and that SIM is better qualified to demonstrate applied medicine.
Methods: We investigated the use of SOPs in anaesthesia, rapid sequence induction (RSI), by means of a QUES (n=42) or SIM (n=42) among 84 anaesthesiologists. Seven measures for preventing aspiration during induction of anaesthesia were examined and evaluated according to a predetermined points system.
Results: The average number of times that precautionary measures to prevent aspiration were mentioned in the QUES [4.8 (0.9)] or performed during SIM [5.0 (1.1)] did not differ between the two groups. Pre-oxygenation was the most frequently described or performed measure (95% vs 93%). However, other measures, such as avoidance of positive pressure ventilation (45% vs 85%), differed significantly between the two groups.
Conclusions: QUES and SIM are powerful instruments for evaluating the implementation of SOPs such as RSI. SIM demonstrates automated behaviours and thus more clearly represents behaviours used in clinical practice than is possible to demonstrate using QUES. Using a combination of these two instruments, method errors resulting from the individual instruments can be reduced.
Keywords: anaesthetic techniques, induction; complications, aspiration; education, continuing; model, computer simulation; safety
The data were presented in part as a poster at the German Anaesthesia Congress (Deutscher Anästhesiecongress—DAC) in Munich from April 16–19, 2005, at the SESAM meeting in Bristol, UK from May 20–22, 2005 and also at the annual meeting of the European Society of Anaesthesia in Vienna, Austria from May 28–31, 2005.
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