Setting up preanesthesia evaluation clinic – An experience of planning and establishment at a private medical college and hospital

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Preanesthesia evaluation (PAE) (also called preanesthetic assessment or preanesthesia checkup) is a detailed medical checkup and laboratory investigations performed by the anesthesiologist before a surgical procedure, to assess the patient's physical condition and any other medical illnesses or diseases the patient might be suffering from. Dedicated outpatient PAE clinics are fairly latest phenomenon, and information is thin from developing world. The role of PAE clinic is to evaluate all patients for surgical procedures requiring general or regional anesthesia before hospital admission, whether for day-care surgical procedures or for inpatient surgical procedures. Optimal use of PAE clinic avoids unnecessary postponements, suboptimal utilization of operation theater, and personnel and parental time. AIMS: The aim of this study was to describe the methods, challenges, and opportunities that we came across in setting up a PAE clinic in a university-based tertiary care teaching hospital attached to a medical college at Mysuru in South India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The PAE clinic was planned to set up in the outpatient department area of this medical college cum tertiary care hospital, manned by a multimodal team. RESULTS: With the utilization of available resources, the establishment of daily PAE clinic was possible in this university-based tertiary care teaching hospital. CONCLUSION: PAE is a clinical base and framework for perioperative patient management. This article describes a scalable model that can be replicated in similar resource-constrained hospitals/health-care organizations.