Volume 5, No. 1 • Spring 1990

International Committee for Prevention of Anesthesia Mortality and Morbidity to Meet in Warsaw in Fall

ICPAMM has met three times to discuss methods employed by various countries to study anesthesia mortality and morbidity.’,’,’ The next meeting will be convened in September, just before the start of the European Congress of Anesthesiology in Warsaw, Poland.

The objective of the meeting is to share information on the latest results of ongoing or recently completed studies of anesthesia outcomes. Given the recent events in Eastern Europe, this should be an excellent opportunity to share what has been learned about methods and results so that studies can be designed and implemented in countries that previously did not have the freedom to share outcome statistics.

The agenda includes reports on outcome studies in Australia (the Australian Incident Monitoring System), the UK. (the Confidential Enquiry on Post operative Deaths), Canada (the Manitoba Study), the U.S. (Pilot Study of Anesthesia Adverse Outcomes and various Quality Assurance studies). The Danish-American randomized trial of pulse oximeter will (hopefully) be recently completed and at least a preliminary report of findings will be presented. Discussion groups are planned to address the following questions. What method of study of outcomes is most revealing about causes and potential remedial strategies?; What has been the usefulness of anesthesia M&M studies?; What strategies for reducing risk are most effective for developing countries?; What direction should anesthesia patient saw take in the 1990’s?

Participation is by invitation only. If you have something to share with this group, please contact Jeffrey Cooper, Ph.D., Department of Anesthesia, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114 for more information.

References

1. Keats AS, Siker ES. International Symposium on Preventable Anesthetic Mortality and Morbidity Report of Scientific Meeting Anesthesiology 63:349-50, 1985.

2. Cooper IB: Conference Report 1986 Meeting of the International Committee for Prevention of Anesthesia Mortality and Morbidity. Can J Anesth 35:287-93, 1988.

3. Cooper IB: Report of a meeting of the International Committee for Prevention of Anesthesia Mortality and Morbidity. Anaesthe5@7 44.441-443, 1989.