Have We Turned a Cold Shoulder to Keeping Our Patients Warm?

As anesthesiologists, we place great value in continuously monitoring our patient's pulse, respiration, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation. Yet we seem to place lower value on our patient's temperature? Studies have repeatedly shown that hypothermia has an important impact on perioperative outcomes, which has led to the inclusion of postoperative temperature as a quality metric. Our patients often remind us of the importance of perioperative hypothermia by their reports of discomfort in cold ORs and through reduced patient satisfaction scores. Much of our knowledge about perioperative hypothermia comes from an era (1990s) when the use of convective warming devices was not routine. Now that active warming and the use of convective warming devices seems ubiquitous, is hypothermia still a significant problem with negative consequences? Newer studies seem to suggest that perioperative hypothermia remains prevalent and patient outcomes continue to be affected (BMC Anesthesiol 2020;20:25; PLoS One 2019;14:e0226038;...