What outcomes should be measured after anaesthesia?

Assessment of the quality of anaesthesia care requires clinically orientated, process of care measures and the measurement of client-assessed (patient and surgeon) outcomes. Anaesthetists and patients believe that mortality, post-operative nausea and vomiting, post-operative pain and awareness are important clinical outcomes to avoid. Process of care measures, such as prolonged stay in the recovery room, unanticipated intensive care unit admissions and unanticipated admission to hospital in ambulatory surgical patients are surrogate markers of anaesthetic outcomes. Patient and surgeonsʹ satisfaction and quality of recovery measures are increasingly being used but require further research to establish reliability and validity before they are widely accepted in clinical trials, economic analyses and quality assurance programmes. Outcomes may be used to set standards of practice after considering their limitations.