One of the most pervasive aspects of American health care in today’s environment is the drive to maintain and improve high quality health care while reducing the costs of that care. Health care costs account for approximately 16% of the gross domestic product, triple the amount from the previous five years. Anesthesia providers are constantly urged to include cost consciousness in their decisions, balancing the natural desire to provide the highest quality of care with the overall priorities of both the health care system and the individual patient. Anesthesia professionals remain targets for limiting health care expenditures. This fact is due in part to anesthesia professionals, directly and indirectly, accounting for 3 to 5% of the total health care costs in this country. Airway management is the cornerstone of anesthesia practice. The proper management of the airway, including the ability to intubate the trachea, is paramount. In 1993, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) identified the need for improved strategies to manage the patient’s airway. This led to the development and implementation of clinical practice guidelines (CPG) for the management of the difficult airway. These CPGs provide a systematic approach to airway management using algorithm charts. Within these practice guidelines, several alternative devices or adjuncts are identified to assist with intubation. Many of these adjuncts have been used for years and have documented favorable patient care related outcomes. The long term goal of this project was to implement a practice change to influence care at the point of patient contact. The short term goal of this project was to put into practice an evidence-based practice (EBP) intervention to facilitate the use of the ASA CPG for the management of the difficult airway by CRNSs.
