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Closed Claims Project Overview

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Catastrophic Perioperative Complications and Management

Abstract

In 1984, the Anesthesia Closed Claims Project was formed by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) in response to sky-rocking insurance premiums, which had left many physicians nearly unable to afford professional liability insurance. Through the analysis of insurance company closed claims, several areas of anesthetic-related patient injury were identified and deemed the focus of this project with the goal of delivering “better” anesthetic care. Ultimately, this resulted in the formation of the Anesthesia Closed Claims Project and its attendant Registries, including the Postoperative Visual Loss (POVL) Registry, Anesthesia Awareness Registry, Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) Death and Near Miss Registry, Neurologic Injury after Non-Supine Shoulder Surgery (NINS) Registry, and Pediatric Perioperative Cardiac Arrest (POCA) Registry. Additionally, this chapter attempts to give some guidance to practicing anesthesiologists on best practices to avoid such devastating consequences. While firm recommendations for rare events are difficult to make, a review of available information is presented here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, The University of Tennessee Medical Center, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Adam P. Roth & Patrick O. McConville

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Robert Craft

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  1. Adam P. Roth
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  2. Patrick O. McConville
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  3. Robert Craft
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Correspondence to Robert Craft .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, USA

    Charles J. Fox, III

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, USA

    Elyse M. Cornett

  3. Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery/Head and Neck Surgery, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center – Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, USA

    G. E. Ghali

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Roth, A.P., McConville, P.O., Craft, R. (2019). Closed Claims Project Overview. In: Fox, III, C., Cornett, E., Ghali, G. (eds) Catastrophic Perioperative Complications and Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96125-5_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96125-5_27

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