Cloud-based data management can provide clinics with the consistency needed for big-picture analytics of clinic operations. Courtesy Digicare Animal Health

Today, most veterinary clinics understand the need for multiparameter patient monitoring systems and their benefits with surgical procedures and anesthesia, watching over everything from heart rate and respiration to temperature. Recordkeeping during and after a procedure is another area that benefits from monitoring systems, though many veterinarians may not be familiar with how it can positively impact a practice.

In addition to providing crucial care information in real time, some systems have the ability to automatically collect patient data such as ECG, arterial blood pressure, pulse oximetry, end-tidal CO₂, and many others from patient monitors and store these vitals directly into the anesthetic monitoring record.

These monitoring systems store the data on a cloud-based infrastructure for easily accessible care records. Some company's monitoring systems will even have proprietary clouds that were designed for and work with their own system while also allowing integration with other patient management systems (PMS).

Benefits of cloud-based monitoring storage extend beyond surgical procedures to long-term quality of care. How a patient's data is recorded has far-reaching implications for the patient's individual health history and safety – along with influence on workload and clinic operations, data security, and even veterinarian protection from liabilities.

Data hand-written during each surgical phase can present inconsistencies with what patient parameters or vitals are recorded (or omitted) and how legible and interpretable it is from one veterinary technician to the next. The issues presented by hand-written records do not just present clerical challenges. They can lead to errors in drug administration, anesthetic planning, and other treatment decisions with potentially disastrous consequences.

Better anesthesia recording for increased safety

As the surgical environment is surrounded by risk, any way in which patient safety can be heightened is always a plus. The opportunity for paperless, real-time anesthesia reporting is the biggest benefit realized when patients are monitored on equipment that digitally collects all procedure information and uploads it to a cloud.

According to the American College of Veterinary Anesthesia and Analgesia's (ACVAA) Small Animal Monitoring Guidelines, a patient's monitored parameters should be recorded every five-10 minutes. All drugs administered to each patient should also be recorded in the peri-anesthetic period and in early recovery, with dose, time and any drug reactions noted.¹

In clinics already dealing with staffing shortages, someone constantly having to record vitals and the steps taken during a procedure can be a major distraction for a crucial team member. Staff may still need to enter patient signalment, surgery assessment notes, and all medications given during pre- and post-operative phases. However, monitoring applications provide prompts to ensure consistent data is entered, offering simplicity to the user, and increasing accuracy and consistency in the patient record. This should remove any concerns about data that is hand-written.