Airway Matters

Develop safe airway management strategies for your patients

The safe management of a patient’s airway is one of the most challenging and complex tasks undertaken by a health professional - complications can result in devastating outcomes.

In this 5-week course, you’ll learn how to improve safety, prevent complications, and be prepared to manage difficulties in airway management.

Understand airway assessment and safety

At the beginning of the course, we’ll discuss the meaning of airway management, how human factors and ergonomics have an impact, and the effect of a patient having COVID-19 on airway procedures.

You’ll learn how to assess an airway and what kinds of equipment you’ll be using in elective and emergency airway management. Guidelines and cognitive aids can help with decision-making and human factors in emergency airway management, so we’ll take a look at some examples.

Discover Rapid Sequence Induction for an obstructed airway

In a situation where a patient has an obstructed airway, you may need to use Rapid Sequence Induction, so you’ll learn how to use this technique to secure the airway safely and rapidly. We’ll also delve into some other special techniques including tracheal intubation and jet ventilation.

When dealing with patients, it’s important to involve them in decision-making, so we’ll discuss how to ensure clear communication and a safe strategy for complicated cases.

Explore airway management in specific scenarios

Airway management depends on many things, including the condition of the patient who requires your help. At this stage of the course, you’ll learn how airway management differs between children and adults, and how factors such as pregnancy and obesity can affect procedures.

Finally, you’ll investigate how airway management differs around the globe, from high resource to low resource settings.

This course, endorsed by the Difficult Airway Society, is for all members of the multidisciplinary team who provide airway support to patients, or care for patients with a compromised airway. This includes anaesthetists, anaesthesia associates, operating department practitioners, nurses, physiotherapists, adult and paediatric intensivists, prehospital and emergency medicine physicians, paramedics, head and neck surgeons and members of the cardiac arrest team.

The course is in English and the learning outcomes are relevant to UK based and international colleagues.

Health professionals might find the Certificate of Achievement for this course useful for providing evidence of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) or commitment to their career.