Anesthesia for Critical Care Patients - Possibilities for a better Patient Safety in the perioperative period - can lives be saved with a better communication?

"To err is human", this report has started a new era for patient safety management in human medicine. Medical errors started to be used as a chance to improve patient safety by looking for causes instead of blaming the person who caused the mistake. In this report medical errors were estimated to be the 8.th leading cause of death in the USA. These errors are often a result of faulty or missing communication. Because of this insight there have been many studies investigating how to improve communication in the medical sector. It has been shown that even small changes can lead to an improved patient safety. The perioperative period is often the target for these changes. During this period interdisciplinary, complex and high risk environment can be found; a situation which can easily lead to communication failure. Unfortunately mistakes that occur in this environment often lead to severe consequences. Especially the relationship of surgeons and anesthetists has often been described as difficult. Different perceptions of their work and different priorities may be the cause for that. Improving their communication is another step towards a better patient safety management. In veterinary medicine possibilities and the need to improve patient safety are slowly being recognized. Controlled studies are rare. Many of the known risk factors that lead to dysfunctional communication can be found in veterinary medicine just as well as in human medicine, especially in critical care patients. Interdisciplinary teamwork, a complex environment and time sensitive decisions are frequently found in this area. In this article literature from human medicine is described and the usefulness for veterinary medicine is discussed.