Canadian Anesthesia Incident Reporting System (CAIRS): The Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society’s National Patient Safety Initiative

The incidence, significance, and management of accidental intra-arterial injection: a narrative review

“…6 It is possible that new anesthesia incident reporting systems will make it easier to confidentially report these types of patient safety issues. 7…”

Quality and patient safety committee structure and activities in an academic department of anesthesiology: a narrative description

“…The QPS committee provides a platform where relevant perioperative providers meet regularly to enable a department to review events and, when appropriate, institute changes, and/or message and educate peers about emerging patient safety and quality of care threats identified locally. With the advent of CAIRS, 6 reports entered into the CAIRS system from one's centre may possibly be reviewed by the local department from which the report originated. The structure and processes used by our QPS committee, as highlighted in this article, provide one possible schema for consideration by other departments embarking on their own QPS journey.…”

“…In addition, the local reporting system also generates an invaluable source of peer-vetted cases to aid the conduct of morbidity and mortality rounds, another feature of monitoring quality of anesthesia care identified in the Guidelines. 5 For anesthesia departments without an established infrastructure for reporting and reviewing events, the recently launched Canadian Anesthetic Incident Reporting System (CAIRS) 6 will hopefully foster and facilitate a reporting culture in perioperative medicine to improve systems of care. Like any reporting system, CAIRS is a tool that may provide feedback and information about events to support quality and safety improvement at the department, hospital, and health-system levels of care.…”

Special announcement: Guidelines to the Practice of Anesthesia—Revised Edition 2020

“…Adverse event recording and reporting systems must be an important part of departmental quality and safety programs (see section 2.1-4) or departments can choose to report using national programs such as the CAS Canadian Anesthesia Incident Reporting System. 13 In addition to recording monitored vital signs and routine events: ''All other relevant intraoperative anesthesia care and events, including unexpected or adverse events, should also be recorded''.…”