APSF Announces a "Miniretreat" for the APSF Board and Committee Members

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, a second retreat to review the status of the foundation and consider future projects and strategies has been scheduled for Friday, October 20th in Atlanta prior to the annual ASA meeting. A similar Board Retreat in 1992 provided the Foundation with more clearly identified long-range goals for existing programs and ideas for new directions to pursue.

This year, the structure of the retreat will be in the form of four breakout sessions, each of which will include a working lunch. In the afternoon, there will be a plenary session at which all participants will meet to hear reports from all four sessions' recording secretaries with ample opportunity for general discussion.

The four areas of study that have been designated are:

  1. Communication: co-chaired by Robert Caplan, M.D. and John Eichhorn, M.D. This session will assess currently available and future avenues for communications to and from the APSF regarding its projects and missions.
  2. Research: chaired by Jeffrey Cooper, Ph.D. This group will assess the impact of supported research on patient safety and the question of "directed" protocols which may address, more specifically, anesthetic patient safety issues.
  3. Education: chaired by Michael Good, M.D. This session will consider present and future educational activities to further the goals of APSF.
  4. Technology: chaired by Joseph Pepper, Ph.D. This forum will review both present achievements and the future of technological contributions to anesthesia patient safety.
A brief report of the results of the APSF retreat will appear in a future issue of the Newsletter.