Education Resources
The following links provide access to a variety of free educational resources. Some of these are developed by Simpact whilst many are made available through other parties.
The Case of Elaine Bromiley: Elaine Bromiley, an otherwise well 37 year old woman, presented for routine sinus surgery in 2005 and died due to complications of an an unanticipated difficult airway. The case highlights how, despite the presence of experienced and diligent clinicians, human factors can adversely impact on patient care. The following free resources are intended to increase awareness of the issues involved in cases such as these and potential strategies to address them.
The Vortex Approach: This novel cognitive tool developed by Nicholas Chrimes & Peter Fritz, is simple enough to be used in "real time" during the stress of an airway crisis and flexible enough to be used in any context in which an airway crisis might occur. Incorporating considerations of teamwork & human factors into its design the authors describe it as a "high stakes cognitive tool". An ebook, videos and a variety of other resources related to the the Vortex Approach are available for free at vortexapproach.org
4th National Audit Project (NAP4): A major UK study on complications of anaesthesia has shown that obese patients are twice as likely to develop serious airway problems during a general anaesthetic than non-obese patients. The study also shows that the use of a simple breathing monitor, called a capnograph, could significantly reduce deaths and brain damage from such problems in intensive care units (ICUs); it found that absence of capnography contributed to 74% of deaths from these events in ICUs during the study.