Our standards of healthcare and patient safety are among the best in the world and we're proud of the part we play in ensuring things stay that way. Through our committees and sub-committees, we oversee a range of incident reporting activities in Australia and New Zealand, as well as being responsible for reviewing, preparing and publishing policies, statements, and guidelines around anaesthesia, pain medicine and perioperative medicine practice. These activities are relevant to a wide range of health care practitioners.
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Our professional documents (prof docs), statements and guidelines are crucial for promoting the safety and quality of patient care for those undergoing anaesthesia for surgical and other procedures and for those receiving pain medicine treatment.
We've contributed to or endorsed a selection of guidelines and statements developed by other organisations.
These statements undergo a deliberative process within the college committee structure and require approval by the oversight committee, or the ANZCA Council, prior to publication.
The Standards for Anaesthesia and its accompanying background paper are intended to apply to all those in clinical practice within the specialty of anaesthesia wherever anaesthesia services are provided. The aim is for these standards to be used as benchmarks to foster quality in patient care as well as to facilitate quality improvement.
We're responsible for setting the standards of clinical practice for pain medicine in Australia and New Zealand. Our activities in this area include developing professional documents, issuing safety alerts; and overseeing incident reporting activities.
The Standards for Perioperative Medicine have been released for a six-month pilot period ending in June 2024. These standards are intended to apply to all medical practitioners whose practice falls within the scope of perioperative medicine. The purpose of these standards is to articulate standards and associated indicators of quality care against which performance can be compared.
We oversee a range of incident reporting activities in Australia and New Zealand, including mortality reporting and webAIRS, to ensure that we continue to be two of the safest countries in the world to undergo anaesthesia.
These management and diagnosis cards have been jointly produced by ANZCA and the Australian and New Zealand Anaesthetic Allergy Group (ANZAAG). They are designed to be used as a crisis management package in the event of an acute perioperative anaphylaxis.
The Perioperative Care Framework was developed by the Perioperative Care Working Group approved by ANZCA Council in December 2021, and updated in December 2023.
ANZCA and peak diabetes, obesity and gastroenterological bodies have produced an updated set of clinical practice recommendations for patients using GLP-1 receptor agonists and dual GLP-1/GIP receptor co-agonists. The college has also developed a patient information sheet and a form for patients taking GLP-1 receptor agonists for the treatment of diabetes or for weight loss.
Important information about the introduction of neural devices with connectors compliant with the new international standard ISO 80369-6.
To assist fellows and trainees, the college has also developed a framework for understanding professionalism and performance as it applies to the practice of anaesthesia and pain medicine: Supporting professionalism and performance – A guide for anaesthetists and pain medicine physicians.
The Safety and Quality Committee works with fellows and ANZCA Council to support safe clinical practice in anaesthesia and pain medicine.