The nature of the response to airway management incident reports in high income countries: A scoping review

Abstract

Adverse events associated with failed airway management may have catastrophic consequences, and despite many advances in knowledge, guidelines and equipment, airway incidents and patient harm continue to occur. Patient safety incident reporting systems have been established to facilitate a reduction in incidents. However, it has been found that corrective actions are inadequate and successful safety improvements scarce. The aim of this scoping review was to assess whether the same is true for airway incidents by exploring academic literature that describes system changes in airway management in high-income countries over the last 30 years, based on findings and recommendations from incident reports and closed claims studies. This review followed the most recent guidance from the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE and Embase, the JBI database, SCOPUS, the Cochrane Library and websites for anaesthetic societies were searched for eligible articles. Included articles were analysed and data synthesised to address the review’s aim. The initial search yielded 28,492 results, of which 111 articles proceeded to the analysis phase. These included 23 full-text articles, 78 conference abstracts and 10 national guidelines addressing a range of airway initiatives across anaesthesia, intensive care and emergency medicine. While findings and recommendations from airway incident analyses are commonly published, there is a gap in the literature regarding the resulting system changes to reduce the number and severity of adverse airway events. Airway safety management mainly focuses on Safety-I events and thereby does not consider Safety-II principles, potentially missing out on all the information available from situations where airway management went well.