A new NHS invention is giving anaesthetists greater control and reduces the risk of nerve damage, when performing regional anaesthesia.
Over 20 million regional anaesthetic nerve blocks are performed each year throughout the EU and US.1 Current procedures require two operators, an anaesthetist to position the needle using an ultrasound probe for guidance and an assistant to operate the syringe to inject the anaesthetic solution. The current process relies heavily on the assistant’s interpretation of the pressure prior to injection.
This is highly subjective and ‘syringe feel’ varies between individuals, thus creating the risk for anaesthetic solutions to be injected at high pressure. Safira (SAFer Injection for Regional Anaesthesia), initially devised by a group of clinicians from the NHS, addresses this problem. It brings a new technology to regional anaesthesia and is the first device to both turn the regional block process into a one-person procedure and introduce a built-in safety element to help prevent injection at high pressures.
The challenges of current regional anaesthesia practice
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