Anesthetic error. Part 3 (review)

Failure to perform checks, inattentiveness, lack of vigilance, and carelessness have been identified as causative factors for medical errors. In an era where patient knowledge and awareness of diseases and their treatments are expanding, clinicians need to be more vigilant to avoid tragic outcomes and litigation. Evidence of obtaining information. A retrospective information search of literary sources was performed using a spatial-vector model of a descriptor system based on classifiers, supplemented by a manual search of scientific publications. Materials and methods. Scientific literature information was obtained using the Scopus, CrossRef, Google Scholar, and PubMed search engines, supplemented by a manual search of cited articles. Evidence synthesis. The World Health Organization considers diagnostic errors (DE) to be one of the five leading causes of patient safety violations worldwide. In the practice of anesthesiology and intensive care, DEs occur at different stages of the diagnostic process: during the initial assessment and physical examination, during the selection and interpretation of diagnostic tests, or during follow-up and monitoring. For many reasons, diagnosis in primary care (i.e., at first contact, accessible, continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated health care) represents an area of ​​high risk for error. DEs include delayed, incorrect, and missed diagnosis. Diagnostic errors can result in harm through omissions (e.g., delaying or failing to treat an undiagnosed condition) and/or actions (e.g., treating an incorrectly diagnosed condition). Epidemiological data indicate that «classic» complications (failure or airway management error) have become less common. Not using alternative airway management methods was recognized as poor practice, a reminder of the importance of training to become expert in complex airway management guidelines. Airway modeling during tracheal intubation training engages staff of all grades, improves skill retention, and can highlight hidden errors and poor processes. The consequences of equipment failure during anesthesia can be extremely serious. Anesthesia machines have evolved to the point where it takes multiple simultaneous errors to cause harm to a patient. Simple vigilance, standardized protocol, and «think before you act» are key factors in avoiding treatment errors. Conclusion. Currently, anesthesia error remains an urgent problem of modern medicine. An anesthesia error can be directly related to the human factor, but can also depend on objective reasons. Most anesthesia errors are preventable.