Standardization of Anaesthesia Ready Time and reasons of delay in induction of anaesthesia.

OBJECTIVE Anaesthesia-Ready Time (ART) is the time taken by the anaesthetist to provide sufficient anaesthetic depth for start of surgery. Our aim was to set benchmark timings for ART and compare it with our current practice. METHODS Benchmark ART time of 15 minutes was set for American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class I and II patients, 30 minutes for ASA III and IV patients, 20 minutes for spinal and 30 minutes for epidural anaesthesia. An additional 15 minutes was added for each invasive procedure. RESULTS Three hundred elective cases were audited. Seventy eight percent of the cases were within benchmark timings. The main causes of delay included undergraduate students performing procedures (24.6%), teaching invasive lines to postgraduates (21.3%) and paediatric patients (16.4%). CONCLUSION The introduction of benchmark timings and its regular auditing can help standardize operating room booking time and reducing patient cost.