The portable glostavent: Speed of assembly and successful ventilation for naive operators

The increasing interest in,and opportunities for, global anesthesia outreach have revealed a need for familiarity with medications, anesthesia techniques, and anesthesia delivery systems often never before encountered by first world anesthesiologists. A medical mission trip may be the first time an anesthesiologist handles a specific type of anesthesia delivery system, which is often rudimentary and may be in a state of disrepair. These life sustaining devices may be apt to malfunction; this propensity is especially dependent on the resources inherent to the local environment and can lead to potentially disastrous and unsafe events. The draw-over anesthesia technique is ideally suited for such environments because of its simple and safe design. The objective of our study was to determine whether anesthesiologists without previous experience using a portable version of the Glostavent (GV, Diamedica Ltd, Barnstaple, United Kingdom), could use the manufacturer’s instructions to assemble the device and successfully ventilate a mannequin in a simulation scenario. Our study demonstrates that a novel draw-over anesthesia machine could use the manufacturer’s instructions to assemble the device and successfully ventilate a mannequin in a simulation scenario. Our hypothesis was that naïve operators, after a 10 minute self-training period, would be able to accomplish the task. Twenty nine of thirty participants (resident and attending anesthesiologists) were able to assemble the machine and successfully ventilate the mannequin within the ten minute test period. The results of our study demonstrate that this novel draw-over anesthesia machine can be easily assembled and its use learned by anesthesiologists who have never seen such a device before. These results suggest that this simple suitcase anesthesia machine is a worthy investment, especially for anesthesiologists who plan to participate in outreach anesthesia.