Anesthesia Information Management Systems: Evolution of the Paper Anesthetic Record to a Multisystem Electronic Medical Record Network That Streamlines Perioperative Care

Initially devised in the 1890s, the traditional anesthetic record comprises physiological changes, crucial anesthetic or surgical events, and medications administered during the perioperative period. The timely collection of quality data facilitates situational awareness and point-of-care clinical decision making. The burgeoning volume and complexity of data in conjunction with financial incentives and the push for improved clinical documentation by regulatory bodies have prompted the transition away from paper records. Anesthesia Information Management Systems (AIMS) are specialized electronic health record networks that allow the anesthesia record to interface with hospital clinical data repositories, resulting in improvements in quality of care, patient safety, operations management, reimbursement, and translational research. Like most new technological advances, adoption was slow at first due to the challenges of integrating complex systems into daily clinical practice, questions about return on investment, and medicolegal liability. Recent technological advances, coupled with government incentives, have allowed AIMS adoption to reach an acceleration phase among US academic medical centers; widespread utilization of AIMS by 84% of US academic medical centers is expected by 2018-2020. Adoption among nonacademic US and European medical centers still remains low; information concerning Asian countries is limited to literature describing only single–hospital center experiences.