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An Environmental Scan of Anesthesia Information Management Systems in the American and Canadian Marketplace

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Abstract

Anesthesia Information Management Systems are specialized forms of electronic medical records used by anesthesiologists to automatically and reliably collect, store, and present perioperative patient data. There are no recent academic publications that outline the names and features of AIMS in the current American and Canadian marketplace. An environmental scan was performed to first identify existing AIMS in this marketplace, and then describe and compare these AIMS. We found 13 commercially available AIMS but were able to describe in detail the features and functionalities of only 10 of these systems, as three vendors did not participate in the study. While all AIMS have certain key features, other features and functionalities are only offered by some of the AIMS. Features less commonly offered included patient portals for pre-operative questionnaires, clinical decision support systems, and voice-to-text capability for documentation. The findings of this study can inform AIMS procurement efforts by enabling anesthesia departments to compare features across AIMS and find an AIMS whose features best fit their needs and priorities. Future studies are needed to describe the features and functionalities of these AIMS at a more granular level, and also assess the usability and costs of these systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. South Island Department of Anesthesia, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Pooya Kazemi

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Pooya Kazemi

  3. School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Pooya Kazemi & Francis Lau

  4. Department of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Clyde Matava

  5. Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Clyde Matava

  6. Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Allan F. Simpao

Authors
  1. Pooya Kazemi
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  2. Francis Lau
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  3. Clyde Matava
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  4. Allan F. Simpao
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Contributions

Pooya Kazemi and Francis Lau contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection was performed by Pooya Kazemi. Data analysis and interpretation were performed by all authors. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Pooya Kazemi and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pooya Kazemi.

Ethics declarations

Research involving human participants and/or animals

Ethics approval was obtained in May 2019 from the University of Victoria Human Research Ethics Board prior to commencement of the study. Copy of the Certificate of Ethical Approval available upon request.

Informed consent

All AIMS vendors were provided with a study information letter that also served as implied consent.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

None declared.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Education & Training

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Features of the AneScan AIMS
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Table 6 Features of the Cerner AIMS
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Table 7 Features of the Drager AIMS
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Table 8 Features of the Epic AIMS
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Table 9 Features of the General Electric AIMS
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Table 10 Features of the iProcedures AIMS
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Table 11 Features of the Picis AIMS
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Table 12 Features of the Recordation AIMS
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Table 13 Features of the Spectrum AIMS
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Table 14 Features of the Talis AIMS
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Table 15 Description of vendors that did not participate in the study
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Kazemi, P., Lau, F., Matava, C. et al. An Environmental Scan of Anesthesia Information Management Systems in the American and Canadian Marketplace. J Med Syst 45, 101 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-021-01781-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-021-01781-0

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