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| Updated Jul. 27, 2010 |
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Patients Use New Web Tool To D Gabriel Miller | ||||||||
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A new Web site designed by a California anesthesiologist is helping patients better understand anesthesia risks before undergoing surgery. It may also help physicians in other specialties make better use of their time during office visits. The site, anesthesiarisk.net, was designed by Lynnus Peng, MD, chairman of the Anesthesia Department at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif., after years of seeing patients disorganized during preoperative visits and, perhaps more importantly, so mystified by the process of anesthesia that they were too scared to ask questions that might significantly affect their surgical care. “The patients I see [are] unprepared and [do] not know that much about anesthesia or what questions to ask, so I wanted to provide them with a site to organize their medical history,” said Dr. Peng. “And oftentimes we meet them right before surgery, when they’re too scared to ask.” He realized the need for such patient input had come to a head during a church service about a year ago when he listened to a pastor relay the story of his father’s death during surgery. And with the pending nationwide release of Awake—a movie in which the plot hinges on a patient’s anesthetic awareness during heart surgery—Dr. Peng felt even more compelled to provide a scientific, evidence-based alternative for patients seeking information. The Web site contains an 11-part patient survey based on algorithms provided by organizations such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and on anesthesia guidelines at St. Jude and other hospitals. The survey includes basic questions about activity, medications and history of health conditions. Working with John MacCarthy, MD, also an anesthesiologist at St. Jude, Dr. Peng researched presurgical patient questionnaires from other medical centers to inform the language of the survey. For technical expertise, Dr. Peng tapped his brother, a former IBM employee currently in dental school, to build the site and code the algorithms that weight patients’ comorbidities and generate the survey’s recommendations. The Web site survey—which is compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act—assesses the basic history of patients and generates a printout to consult at the hospital. “This is more to help patients organize their history and their thoughts; it does not supersede a physician evaluation and currently there is no consideration of what kind of surgical procedure [patients] are having,” said Dr. Peng. Because the site asks fundamental questions that apply across office visits in a number of specialties, Dr. Peng is hoping that patients will begin using it when they see a primary care doctor and that younger family members will help their parents and grandparents conduct the assessment. Perhaps the most significant benefit, according to Dr. Peng, is that the shrinking window of time set aside for presurgical appointments can be used more effectively. “After they take the assessment, they can discuss it with their physician and the discussion can be more tailored,” Dr. Peng said. “We are able to have a more intelligent, focused interaction.” In addition to the original site, the interactive assessment is also hosted on St. Jude’s home page. Additionally, there are plans to host it on the Web site of University of California-Irvine Medical Center. Although Dr. Peng has plans for sites assessing pediatric anesthesia and sleep apnea, currently there are no plans to host the site elsewhere until he gets more feedback. In the meantime, physicians can direct their patients to the free service at either of the two current Web addresses. So far, both patients and colleagues have been enthused. Dr. Peng has pitched it to several medical-surgical committees and the response has been “very, very positive, because we all know patients are becoming very tech savvy and can look up anything on the Internet.” |
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