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More on regional anesthesia induction rooms

Sainte-Foy, Québec

To the Editor:

I would like to comment on a recent editorial on the interest of an induction room.¹ Basically, the creation of an induction room involves four issues: quality of anesthesia care; functioning costs; timing of patient management; and benefits for teaching.

Cost issues involve the salary of a medical assistant and expenses related to running an additional "operating" room. However, when the patient is successfully blocked, his/her stay in the operating room is shortened as induction is eliminated, and there are no additional anesthetic expenses. The anesthesiologist remains available for the next block procedure and after surgery, the patient can bypass the recovery room, saving money, occupational time and a bed. Thus, a functioning induction room represents a transfer of activity rather than new activity.

In institutions doing mostly local anesthesias (no required "soak" time for block installation) or when regional techniques are occasional, an induction room is of lesser interest. Conversely, when the load of conduction block patients is heavy, an induction room allows optimizing the occupation time of up to three operating rooms. Performing a plexus block requires approximately 30 min (equipment/medication set-up, procedure and clean up): up to 16 patients per-eight hour day can be treated. When adding the time for block installation (30 min, no staff assistance required), one hour of operating room time can be spared for each successfully blocked patient.

Lastly, an induction room is more suited for teaching regional anesthesia than can be a busy operating room with awaiting surgeons.

Reference

1 Drolet P, Girard M. Regional anesthesia, block room and efficiency: putting things in perspective (Editorial). Can J Anesth 2004; 51: 1–5.[Free Full Text]

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