Background and Goal of Study
Even though it comprises every physician’s priority, patient safety is an anesthesiologist’s most substantial duty.
Since the launch of the Helsinki Declaration (HD) on Patient Safety, Societies of Anesthesia across Europe have been making efforts to establish protocols in everyday practice.
The Hellenic Society of Anesthesiology (HSA) has issued guidelines that could serve as a basis for the protocols, whose presence is deemed mandatory in the anesthesiologists’ workplace by the HD.
We aimed to determine to what extent are anesthesiology protocols present in the hospital environment in Greece and their application in routine anesthesiology procedures.
Materials and Methods
Questionnaires were distributed via email to all physicians occupied as anesthesiologists, registered in the HSA network.
In an attempt to estimate the influence of additional factors on the adherence to protocols, the participants had to provide information concerning their age, years of practice, whether they work in the public or private domain, in a secondary or tertiary care facility.
They were also requested to declare their commitment to the use of protocols along with their opinion on its functionality, as well as accompanying drawbacks and advantages.
Results and Discussion
102 anesthesiologists answered our questionnaires.
The vast majority of responders were positively disposed towards the adoption of protocols and admitted to applying them in everyday clinical practice; however only few among the protocols on the list were widely available at their workspace.
No statistically significant correlations were noted neither between age, years of practice and protocol utilization, nor among secondary or tertiary care, public or private hospitals and access to protocols.
Conclusion
Throughout the years that followed the HD, the implementation of patient safety anesthesia protocols in Greek hospitals has noted a rudimental emergence; however, progress remains to be made in terms of compliance to protocols in a routine basis.
As is more, this subject ought to be better addressed in the education of the forthcoming generations of anesthesiologists.

07 / Patient-Safety Protocols in Anesthesiology: The greek State of Play