Have you ever been in a code situation where there were multiple failed intubation attempts on a patient? If so, you aren’t likely to forget it. Managing a difficult airway is one of the most challenging circumstances for even the most seasoned medical professional. 

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a chronic medical condition that affects a person’s nighttime breathing. This can lead to fatigue, dry mouth, and issues with daytime wakefulness. Sleep apnea also correlates with a higher risk of serious health problems, including stroke, heart attack, respiratory disease, pneumonia, and premature death. 

Suctioning a patient’s airway is not a “one size fits all” procedure. Whether to clear secretions that the patient cannot mobilize, remove vomitus or foreign materials from the pharynx or trachea, or to maintain the patency of an artificial airway, some suction strategies will work better than others for a particular situation.  

In a matter of weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic transformed from a hypothetical concern to something that upended lives across the globe. First responders were suddenly risking their lives to tend to patients. Families across the nation holed up in their houses, hoping to save lives. The world may never be the same. Unsurprisingly, airway management has shifted quite a bit in the intervening months, too. Here are some of the changes we’re seeing. 

Preparing for a disaster is an enormous undertaking since there are always so many unknowns. For rural hospitals, this challenge is further amplified due to issues such as remote location, limited resources, and staffing shortages. Yet by actively preparing for the types of disasters that rural hospitals are most likely to face, such difficulties can be lessened.

2020 put emergency medical services (EMS) at the forefront of just about everyone’s minds. Neighbors erected banners celebrating emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and doctors, as healthcare workers saw enormous early death tolls in the wake of the pandemic. COVID continues to rip through communities and will figure prominently in the industry through at least the first half of 2021. 

In October of 2012, superstorm Sandy hit New York City with a vengeance. As area hospitals braced for the storm’s impact, administrators had no reason to fear their back-up generators would fail to function if the city’s power grid went down.

They were wrong.

Suctioning has long been a mainstay of both emergency and routine medical care, but in 2020, it truly came into its own. On a given team, there might have been one or two suctioning experts. But in the wake of the pandemic, every member of every team needed to become a skilled, compassionate expert at suctioning patients. 

What tests are appropriate for portable emergency suction?

The COVID-19 crisis has radically shifted much about how we live, with reverberations that will continue well after the pandemic ends. Dentistry practices are vital to health and well-being. Here’s how dental suctioning has changed due to COVID-19.