Frontline crisis tool worth a thousand words

08 July 2022

Find out how an anaesthesia trainee project became a frontline crisis management resource.

A passion project for four anaesthesia trainees from Sydney’s Royal North Shore hospital developed into a set of cognitive aids and crisis management tools that have helped play a key role in the hospital’s COVID-19 response.

Clockwise from top left: Dr Dushyant Iyer, Dr Dan Zeloof, Dr Jessie Maulder, and Dr Dan Moi were all anaesthesia trainees when they were inspired to work together to create AnaeSthesia Cognitive Aids and Resources (ASCAR). They worked tirelessly to quickly develop, test, and integrate new cognitive aids in a functional format to keep pace with the variety of new protocols and standards that were implemented during their hospital’s response to COVID-19.

ASCAR’s utility has since led to a collaboration with the Safe Airway Society to rapidly develop and distribute a COVID-19 airway management guide.

The story of how ASCAR was first conceived as a hard copy manual with bespoke icons and graphics and now transformed as an app is an inspirational one. You can read all about it in the Winter ANZCA Bulletin.