Anesthesia in Austere Environments: A Narrative Review.

Overview

Over 1 million preventable deaths occur each year because of insufficient access to emergency and essential surgical and anesthetic care. Austere environments, such as low-income and middle-income countries, isolated and confined environments, disaster situations, and combat zones, present specific challenges due to limitations of infrastructure, resources, and the environment. Strategies to improve safe anesthetic care in austere environments include mission trips and humanitarian aid, building local capacity of anesthetists and equipment, and improvisation. Telemedicine, mHealth applications, and other novel technologies are also being used to increase access to anesthesia.