Pediatric Sedation: The Asian Approach: Current State of Sedation in China
摘要
The need for sedation and analgesia for both diagnostic and therapeutic procedures performed outside the operating room has increased dramatically in recent years. In China, there are no national guidelines for the sedation of either children or adults. Hong Kong, although a Special Administrative Region of the PRC (People’s Republic of China), has its own independent Academy of Medicine which does issue guidelines. In recent years there has been increasing development of sedation services in China because of the advance in diagnostic procedures and the large volume of patients seeking care in tertiary centers. Even though there is no organized means to bill for sedation services, some tertiary centers arrange sedation services under the direction of the Department of Anesthesiology, in an effort to meet the demand for diagnostic procedures. On the other hand, because of the limited number of anesthesiologists in Hong Kong, anesthesiologists only provide sedation services for medically challenged and challenging cases in public hospitals. Most pediatric sedation is organized and provided by the pediatrician who requests and performs the procedures. In the first part of this chapter, the sedation services under the direction of the department of anesthesiology in large pediatric hospitals will be described. In the second part, the sedation service for challenging cases, under the care of anesthesiologists in a newly opened children’s hospital, will be presented.