Table 1.

Key areas impacted by anesthesia information management systems [3]

Impact on patients

* Provision of real-time intraoperative decision support * Allows the anesthesia care team to focus on the patient, rather than recording vital signs * Better legibility and availability of historical records * More precise recording of intraoperative data & patient responses to anesthesia

Impact on departmental management

* Supply cost analysis by provider/type of surgery/patient * Improved billing accuracy and timeliness * Fulfils the Joint Commission requirements for legible and comprehensive patient records * Facilitates verification of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education case requirements for trainees (residents/fellows) * Simplifies compliance with concurrency and other regulatory issues

Impact on the practice of anesthesia

* Provides precise, high-resolution records which can be used for educational purposes * Enables researchers to rapidly find rare events or specific occurrences across a large number of cases * Facilitates individual provider performance tracking * Allows better quality assurance functionality through the creation of more complete and precise records * Integration with other hospital databases can allow assessment of short and long term patient outcomes * Provision of additional legal protection via the availability of unbiased, precise information