Technological innovation, education, and commercialization are interdependent and contribute to medical progress only when applied as a whole. Anesthesiology is a highly technology-dependent medical specialty. It has led to safer, more effective anesthesia through the development of products such as pulse oximeters, portable ultrasound, anti-infective catheters, capnography, and computerized anesthesia machines. Simultaneously, one has to keep the economic value of anesthesia in consideration, which can be defined as the benefit of anesthesiology services minus the total cost. Recently, there has been a great push in technological advances in clinical monitoring and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) applications for perioperative management.
Anesthesiologists are recognized leaders in patient safety, leveraging technology and working with real time data while caring for sick patients in a complex environment. Application of AI is perfectly suited for such environments to aid clinicians in their decision-making (Br J Anaesth 2019;123:401-3). AI is a broad and...