title: Using information technology to improve quality in the OR.
abstract: This article summarizes the current state of technology as it pertains to quality in the operating room, ties the current state back to its evolutionary pathway to understand how the current capabilities and their limitations came to pass, and elucidates how the overlay of information technology (IT) as a wrapper around current monitoring and device technology provides a significant advance in the ability of anesthesiologists to use technology to improve quality along many axes. The authors posit that IT will enable all the information about patients, perioperative systems, system capacity, and readiness to follow a development trajectory of increasing usefulness.
authors.affiliation: Perioperative Informatics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 1301 Medical Center Drive, 4648 TVC, Nashville, TN 37232, USA. brian.rothman@vanderbilt.edu
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rothman
authors.forename: Warren S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Sandberg
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: St Jacques
mesh_terms: D000758:Anesthesia / Q000592:standards*; D003626:Data Display; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000458:organization & administration*; D058996:Quality Improvement; D014584:User-Computer Interface