Difficult Intubation

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Difficult Intubation

Airway management, specifically ensuring uninterrupted oxygenation and ventilation, is a fundamental part of the practice of anesthesia and of emergency and critical care medicine. Poor outcomes can be avoided by implementing a comprehensive approach that includes thorough patient evaluation, multidisciplinary cooperation with a predetermined airway management strategy, skillful use of standardized equipment, frequent staff education, dissemination of important patient information, and a willingness to ask for assistance.

Prevention Program Tools

This sample form may be used to inform subsequent providers about a potential difficult airway and can be modified per facility policy and procedure.

Difficult Airway Alert Form

Articles

Management of Unanticipated Difficult Intubation

Even the most thorough assessment of the airway may not detect the possibility of a difficult intubation. Anesthesia providers need to always be prepared to manage an unanticipated difficult intubation.

Companion Online Information

American Society of Anesthesiologists' Guidelines

Practice guidelines from this society (2003) are intended to facilitate the management of the difficult airway and to reduce the likelihood of adverse outcomes.

Difficult Airway Society Guidelines (UK)

Guidelines from this UK society address initial and secondary intubation strategies, as well as followup care, to address unexpected difficult direct laryngoscopy.

Difficult Airway—Identification Card

This patient identification card, published in the August 2009 issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, is intended to capture specific details of a patient's airway difficulty and its management. Anesthesia providers can use it to formally notify patients about their difficulty with airway management and instruct them to carry the card and to show it to subsequent anesthesia providers.

Pediatric Difficult Airway Management: New Modalities?

This presentation reviews pediatric airway management and presents an approach to diffcult airway management in this patient population.

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