Pre-procedure preparation

This article is written primarily from the perspective of seeing a patient in a preoperative assessment clinic rather than immediately before the operation. Patients may have already been identified as having potential anaesthetic or airway problems, and as there is more time to consider further investigations, the anaesthetist must be prepared for a more detailed analysis and discussion of the risks involved.Here we describe a framework, based on the recommendations of the American Heart Association for deciding if further investigations are indicated to stratify the risk of a perioperative cardiac event.