Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is when a person experiences repeated episodes of complete or partial blockage of the upper airway during sleep. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, OSA is a common condition that affects over one in four Canadians (26%). Here we share a story about why identifying patients who may have OSA prior to surgery is important and update you on new clinical guidelines developed by Fraser Health.
In general, appreciation of the perioperative risks that patients with OSA face is increasing. In Fraser Health, a sentinel event of a perioperative death put the dangers of OSA on the radar of the Department of Anaesthesiology and surgical nursing staff. The interdisciplinary review identified the need for greater staff awareness of OSA, and guidelines to help staff identify and mitigate risk for patients undergoing surgery.
In 2013, an interdisciplinary team came together as a Steering Committee and began researching and consulting with other surgical programs in North America to come up with the first draft of guidelines for adult patients in Fraser Health surgical sites.
“It’s important to consider OSA as part of a surgical patient’s care plan. We need to look at the individual’s needs, such as the kind of surgery they’re having, the anaesthetic and pain medication required, so we can mitigate the risk before, during and after their surgery. It was an iterative process – we received a lot of valuable feedback from experts in the field as we rolled out the guidelines to our surgical sites,” said the Project Coordinator, Sandra Broad.
Now, after months of collaboration, recent audits demonstrated 98% of patients are consistently screened for OSA prior to surgery at all applicable Fraser Health facilities.
The OSA Care Team, Surgical Program, achieved an “Above and Beyond” award for their collaborative leadership in developing clinical practice guidelines for patients with OSA.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iqvGhNI_6Gs%26index%3DPL8WdEvLZoZ4ReRH8Nft5dVqELwG6_SwZg
Sarah Derman, Dr. Dean Jones, Peggy Klassen, Sean Hardiman, Lorraine Prysunka, Dr. John Ramsden and Dr. Curt Smecher.
To learn more about Fraser Health’s OSA initiative, please email Sandra at Sandra.Broad@fraserhealth.ca
This is great work. As the risk profile of patients in general and in those with specific disorders increases, we need tools and techniques to assess risk and take steps to mitigate that risk. I expect that the assessment tool and the protections it provides are but the first step in this type of work as other patients will have different surgical and anesthetic risks that merit further study.
Sandra, thank you for your work for these patients!
Sleep Apnea is a serious health issue. With this condition there is considerable trouble to take a breath while sleeping. One of the main reasons for sleep apnea is being overweight so a person with sleep apnea should try to lose weight. There are also many ways to treat sleep apnea and a CPAP mask can be helpful, but it can be difficult to choose right one. There is a site which has good advice on how to choose the right CPAP mask. To learn more about it visit http://bit.ly/2hjhdWl.