Patient Selection:

Proper patient selection is a key factor in ensuring a safe service is delivered to patients, particularly if you envisage conscious sedation in dental surgeries will be part of your practice.

​

At Elite Anaesthesia we can tailor the use of a specific online pre-operative health survey for patients that we personally anaesthetise for our dentists to allow us to properly select a suitable patient population. Those that are unsuitable can be redirected into a higher level of care, such as a day hospital environment. This selection is not only in the best interests of our patients, but also our dentists, as a single adverse event can have significant implications for the community's perception of a dental practice.

​

While our specific surveys are for the use of our clients only, as previously discussed it is usually ASA1 and ASA2 patients that are suitable for conscious sedation in day surgeries.  There are a range of other criteria, some of which do not commonly get attention in surveys done by non-anaesthetists; for example, we believe patients with gastric bands for weight loss represent an unacceptable risk of aspiration for conscious sedation in dental surgeries. This surgery has become very common, along with gastric sleeves, and markedly affects the likelihood of a patient having an empty stomach despite their fasting status. It is relatively straightforward for anaesthetists to detect these evolution in patient populations as we often anaesthetitse for this surgery itself; and understand the various ramifications.

​

More details can be provided by engaging Elite Anaesthesia for your practice needs.