Innovative Anesthesia Technology at Southwest General Hospital Improves Quality of Patient Care

Anesthesia Can Now Be Customized to Each Patient’s Needs During Surgery

Southwest General Hospital recently installed in its operating rooms a monitor that provides valuable information that improves the quality of patient care during and after surgery. The BIS (pronounced “biz”) monitor enables anesthesiologists to make sure that their patients continually receive a tailored dose of anesthesia throughout surgery. This enables clinicians to reduce the risk of patient awareness with recall during surgery, and allows patients to wake up sooner and recover more quickly from anesthesia. Southwest General Hospital has this new technology in every operating room suite.

Individual anesthetic needs can vary widely based on such factors as age, weight, and medical history. With the monitor, anesthesia providers can continuously assess a patient’s level of consciousness throughout surgery and make fine-tuned adjustments to the types and quantities of anesthetic drugs administered.

According to Ken Hiller, MD, anesthesiologist “ Many patients are concerned that they may not get the optimal dose of anesthesia. No patient wants to receive too little anesthesia and wake up during surgery, on the other hand, get more anesthetic than they need.” Dr. Hiller said, “With the BIS monitor, we can effectively decrease the chances of under dosing or overdosing by monitoring each patient’s level of consciousness throughout surgery.”