The WFSA Fresenius Kabi Anaesthesia Innovation Awards support the development of pioneering ideas that have the potential to transform the field of anaesthesia.
The awards, developed alongside the global healthcare company Fresenius Kabi, provide new innovators with mentoring and consultancy, financial support, and a platform at The World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (WCA). Previous winners have used the award to develop, refine and showcase game-changing tools, such as a screenless anaesthesia monitor, an affordable capnography device and a video laryngoscope for a difficult airway.
1st Place – Global PRoMiSe: Perioperative Recommendations for Medication Safety
Dr. Karen Nanji, Dr. Beverley Orser, Dr. Alan Merry, Dr. Adrian Gelb, Dr. Joyce Wahr
Perioperative medication errors are a significant public health problem, with 4-10% of medication administrations, or almost every second operation, involving a medication error. About half of these lead to patient harm, and the remainder have the potential for patient harm. Dr. Karen Nanji’s innovation aims to provide anaesthesia clinicians working in all resource settings with targeted strategies to help prevent medication errors. This resource is to be expert-based and tailored to country resource availability.
While many strategies to prevent medication errors have been recommended in high and middle income countries, most involve significant financial investment and rely on process improvements such as syringe labelling to already be in place, which may be difficult in middle and low income countries where resources are scarce. – Dr. Karen Nanji
The Global PRoMiSe project, based at Harvard Medical School, aims to reduce medication errors by developing context-appropriate patient safety recommendations for policymakers, hospital administrators and frontline healthcare providers. The first-place award funds will go towards the research, creation and dissemination of these recommendations.