Anesthesia Services Anesthesia services at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital include a monitoring system that provides a direct measurement of anesthetic effect on patients. The BIS monitor allows the anesthesiologist to administer more exact doses of anesthetic, ensuring that a patient is unconscious to a desirable level, wakes up more quickly and allows a shorter recovery time from the effects of anesthetic. The method is so precise that as the anesthetic is withdrawn the anesthesiologist can predict exactly when a patient's eyes will open.
Recovery can be almost immediate, allowing patients to go home faster.
The monitor provides information in the form of a numerical value, from 100 for wide awake to zero in the absence of brain electrical activity. At BIS levels below 70 patients have a very low probability of recall of operating room activity. The BIS system has been extensively studied and shown to correlate with the patient's specific level of sedation and consciousness. Previously it was thought that blood pressure was related to the state of unconsciousness, but the monitor has shown there is no correlation between the two. The monitor also will allow doctors to communicate with patients while performing endoscopies, in which a tube with a small camera is inserted rectally or through the throat for diagnostic information.