Improving the Safety and Convenience of Emergency Anesthesia Codes by Implementing a Portable Glidescope Bag

Abstract

Anesthesia providers such as residents, CRNAs, fellows, and attendings are responsible to quickly arrive to anesthesia STATs, code blues and trauma pages and are responsible for securing the airway if needed. In emergent situations like these the providers are expected to provide efficient and safe care Almost always we come with no information on patient history, airway, age, etc. Multiple studies have shown higher intubation success rates in adults and children by using a glidescope on the first attempt (1). Currently at Childrens Hospital of Michigan in Detroit Michigan, in such scenarios many providers take the glide-scope on wheels with them to emergency overhead calls while some choose not to take it mostly due to the cumbersome task of wheeling the glide-scope and being forced to take the elevator which delays the arrival to the patient. This quality initiative project highlights improvements made by a plan do study act which implements a small bag with a portable handheld glide-scope device inside that attaches to the trauma backpack. This will eliminate the cumbersome task of wheeling the glidescope to emergencies, decrease the time to get to the patient, increase first time intubation success rate by having a glidescope available when needed and decreasing attempts by non-anesthesia providers before the anesthesia provider gets to the scene. In the preintervention survey most attendings stated that they do not take the glides-cope to emergencies due to the transportation issue mostly and those attendings did also state that they would consider taking it if its easier to transport. Most residents do take the large glidescope on wheels to emergencies but they did admit that they feel like it takes them longer to get to codes/traumas and anesthesia STATs due them having to wait for the elevator. By adding this glide-scope portable bag to our existing code bags I believe it will take less time to get to the anesthesia emergency, increase the intubation success rate & decrease attempts to intubation hence will reduce trauma to the airway, prolonged hypoxia and morbidity.