Anesthesia Patient Safety Podcast

If your preop clinic feels overloaded, the answer might not be “work harder” it might be “triage smarter.” We share highlights from the 2026 APSF Stoelting Conference on how perioperative teams can match resources to risk, protect access for complex patients, and improve safety across the full surgical journey.

We dig into the Cleveland Clinic approach to risk stratification using readmission and mortality data, then translate it into real pathways: virtual preoperative evaluation for low risk patients, focused in-person assessment for high risk patients, and advanced care planning for the most vulnerable. The operational upside is real, too: telemedicine can lower cost per encounter, scale staffing without adding rooms, and free up time for the patients who truly need it.

From there, we fast forward to what happens after surgery, where post discharge care often determines whether patients recover smoothly or bounce back to the hospital. The data driven message is clear: earlier follow up for high risk patients can reduce mortality and readmissions. We also explore what a safer AI future requires, including the cognitive traps behind missed AI mistakes and a practical rule for calibration: treat AI like a junior teammate with strong training and no references or real world experience.

Finally, we challenge ourselves to treat patient experience as a vital sign, connect it to standardized perioperative outcomes, and consider how transparency efforts like Leapfrog safety grades can drive change. If you care about anesthesia patient safety, perioperative medicine, and trustworthy AI in healthcare, subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more clinicians can find it.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/329-smarter-perioperative-triage/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

Welcome to the 2nd episode in our coverage of this year's APSF Stoelting Conference. Discharge feels like a win, but what if it’s only the handoff into the riskiest part of recovery? We challenge the OR to PACU to hospital discharge success mindset and zoom out to the full perioperative journey, where real anesthesia patient safety is measured by what patients can do once they’re back home
 living their lives.
We share powerful ideas from the 2026 APSF Stoelting Conference, including a vision for frictionless surgical care that reduces the burden on patients and clinicians through earlier history capture, smarter coordination, and better post-discharge pathways for known patients who need urgent help. Then we get concrete about outcomes: high-risk surgical patients are safer when they’re seen within 14 days after discharge, but limited clinic resources make that hard to deliver consistently. AI-powered risk stratification and predictive analytics can help identify who truly needs that early follow-up to reduce readmissions and mortality.

We also explore patient-defined success, where an uneventful anesthetic and smooth PACU can still end in confusion, missed medications, fear of mobility, or a preventable fall at home. The 4Ms framework (what matters, medication, mind, mobility) gives us a practical lens for age-friendly perioperative care. On the front end, we look at how AI can support preop clinic workflows, from triage to medication instructions, while naming the real concern of de-skilling and the need for clinician upskilling.

If you find this useful, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more perioperative teams can build safer recoveries beyond discharge.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/328-discharge-is-not-the-finish-line-stoelting-conference-series-part-2/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

SOS is more than a maritime relic. It is proof that when people agree on a shared signal, they move faster, coordinate better, and save lives. That is the challenge we wrestle with from the 2026 APSF Stoelting Conference.  Healthcare is full of alarms, monitors, checklists, risk scores, and AI predictions, but we still struggle to agree on which safety signals truly matter, what they mean, and what we are supposed to do next to prevent harm across the perioperative continuum. This is the first part of our series on the 2026 APSF Stoelting Conference.

We dig into a barrier that quietly slows progress: mixing up quality and patient safety. From the patient’s view, quality asks whether care meets best practice, while safety is simpler and more urgent: “Please don’t harm me.” Real patient safety improvement leans on safety science, systems thinking, resilience, psychological safety, and human factors engineering. One memorable example makes it painfully concrete: a defibrillator design that can be accidentally powered off during a cardiac arrest, forcing a multi-minute reboot when seconds determine survival. The takeaway is clear: safer design beats another training module.

Then we zoom out to the 30,000-foot problem of perioperative mortality. Intraoperative deaths are now rare, but postoperative mortality remains common, with threats like myocardial injury after non-cardiac surgery, acute kidney injury, and respiratory complications. We talk about why intermittent ward vital signs miss dangerous hypoxemia and hypotension, why opioids (especially with sedatives) amplify risk, and why continuous vital sign monitoring and stronger postoperative medical management may be the next big step in anesthesia patient safety.

We wrap by connecting quality, safety, and revenue through analytics and clinical AI, including risk stratification and targeted post-discharge follow-up for high-risk patients. Subscribe for more Stoelting Conference highlights, share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more perioperative teams can find the tools to keep patients safe.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/327-sos-signals-for-perioperative-safety-stoelting-conference-series-part-1/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

Eye pain in the PACU can trigger a reflex page to ophthalmology, but that reflex is not always the safest or most efficient choice. We provide considerations for perioperative corneal abrasions including why most are superficial epithelial injuries that heal quickly and how an anesthesia-led protocol can deliver fast relief without missing the rare dangerous presentation. If you’ve been unsure when a consult is truly necessary, this conversation gives you a practical, defensible path forward.

We revisit a step-by-step PACU workflow: recognize symptoms early, perform a focused eye exam, assess for visual acuity changes, and use fluorescein staining with cobalt blue light to confirm a defect. We also share the ophthalmologist perspective on “uncomplicated” corneal abrasion management, including lubrication, antibiotic ointment options, and why routine consults can delay discharge, raise costs, and strain resources. The most important piece is the safety net: clear escalation triggers such as significantly reduced visual acuity, worsening or persistent pain, failure to heal, corneal infiltrate or ulceration, fixed pupil, hyphema or hypopyon, suspected foreign body or penetrating injury, stromal involvement, or dendritic staining. 

Then we pivot to medication safety and smart infusion pumps, spotlighting a real-world rollout of Baxter Novum syringe pumps in high-turnover procedural areas. We discuss how usability issues can suppress smart pump compliance, why human factors engineering matters, and how a team used AI to summarize narrative survey feedback into actionable themes. If you care about high-value perioperative care, patient safety protocols, and devices that actually work under pressure, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review with the one change you want to bring to your PACU or OR.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/326-corneal-abrasions-after-surgery/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

A patient gets harmed, everyone wants answers, and the system too often responds with blame, silence, or a slow-moving inquiry that arrives years after the frontline has moved on. Today, we are hosting a special podcast takeover show from The Medical Safety Podcast. 
Hosted by Dr. Adam Shehata (former professional pilot turned physician) and Dr. Amir Hamid (anesthetist and emergency medicine physician), The Medical Safety Podcast focuses on how to improve our healthcare system by integrating human factors into systems safety, including medical incident investigation and proactive safety measures. 
This is Episode 10 where Adam and Amir discuss the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) - UK’s independent aviation-style investigatory body for medical incidents with their CEO, Dr. Rosie Benneyworth.
We hope that you will subscribe to The Medical Safety Podcast for more conversations about healthcare systems improvement and patient safety.
If you care about patient safety, medical incident investigation, healthcare systems improvement, and practical human factors insights, subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more teams can build safer systems.
For show notes & transcript, visit our episode page at apsf.org: https://www.apsf.org/podcast/325-apsf-podcast-takeover-the-hssib-with-ceo-dr-rosie-benneyworth/
© 2026, The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation