The role of technology advances in promoting anesthesia patient safety: present status of Japan

Anesthesia patient safety is, and shall, be a primary concern of anesthesio logists worldwide. To secure patient safety and promote quality of anesthes ia, several areas should be highlighted: I) establishment of professional s tructure and specialty training system; 2) outcome data accumulation and ev aluation; 3) formation and revision of standards and guidelines by using cl osed claim study data and incident monitor data; and 4) technology developm ent such as monitors, fail-safe devices, and simulators. Japan Society of A nesthesiology (JSA) has successfully tackled these problems, however, becau se of the big shortage of anesthesiologists, we still have to establish str ategies to further promote anesthesia patient safety.