Anesthesia Perioperative Evaluation and Exam (APEX) Clinic opens its doors to improve patient care

Within the first two weeks of opening its doors, the Anesthesia Perioperative Evaluation and Exam (APEX) Clinic, which evaluates patients prior to surgery to minimize risk, has seen and optimized over 50 patients for their surgeries and has screened and synthesized evaluations for well over 100 more.

The clinic, a new facility located in the Heart Center, Room LL1, opened on October 1 and comprises two exam rooms, a multipurpose room, and a team work room. The goal of the center is to optimize patient care by developing evidence-based strategies to evaluate and optimize every patient prior to anesthesia in order to minimize risk and improve outcomes during and after surgery.

Numerous individuals were involved in the clinic plan, including Dr. Taylor Johnston, who started the project several years ago, Dr. Jacob Schaff for seeing the vision to reality, and Dr. Laureen Hill for lending administrative leadership on the NYP end. 

The center also will facilitate education, quality, and research opportunities by creating a resident and PA curriculum and will provide CUMC the opportunity to participate in POISE-3 trial enrollment and evaluation.

A design for a similar initiative is under way for pediatric anesthesiology as the department works toward improving efficiency and patient care.