Making preoperative anesthesiological screening future-proof

DIGICA: Preoperative anaesthesiological screening revised: breaking with the face-to-face dogma

In the Netherlands approximately 680,000 patients undergo a surgical procedure each year under general or regional anaesthesia or sedation-analgesia [1]. Anaesthesia is exclusively provided by an anaesthesiologist. It is the anaesthesiologist’s responsibility to prepare patients physically and mentally for the upcoming anaesthesia, to organise the care around the surgical procedures, to be as safe, comfortable, and efficient as possible, and to make sure patients remain comfortable and safe during the recovery period in the first 24 hours after an operation. Furthermore, the anaesthesiologist must enable the patient to give an informed consent for all the required anaesthesiological procedures. Before any procedure under general or regional anaesthesia can be scheduled, patients have to visit an outpatient anaesthesiology clinic for preoperative anaesthesiological evaluation.

The newly established public private partnership between the department of Anaesthesiology of the Erasmus MC and NovaCair B.V. forms the basis for a successful implementation of DIGICA, our patient-centred tailor-made future-proof preoperative anaesthesiological screening platform to facilitate care in the patient’s home-environment. With the development of DIGICA we aim to provide patients with tailor-made information about the entire anesthesiological care path and provide the anaesthesiologist with the required information to safely provide anaesthetic care for the patient.

By successfully implementing this project the preoperative anaesthesiological care can be transformed to an extramural care path for those eligible, while maintaining a considerably downsized intramural care path for emergency surgery and patients otherwise not eligible for extramural care paths. This could result in a potential financial societal benefit of €14-16M, which in turn can be invested in further development of tools to optimise the most frail patients in the broadest sense, babies on the one end and the elderly on the other end.

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Summary

DIGICA will make preoperative anesthesiological screening future-proof by creating a fully digital information platform. This platform provides patients with tailor-made information about the entire anesthesiological care path, enables them to provide an informed consent and provides the anaesthesiologist with the required information to safely provide anaesthetic care.

Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

2 - 7

Time period

48 months

Partners