Key Takeaways From #ANES25: AI, QI, and the Knowledge Chaos Challenge

ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2025 brought together thousands of anesthesiology professionals in San Antonio to discuss the specialty's most pressing challenges—from AI integration and patient safety to resident training and quality improvement. Our team spent the weekend connecting with department leaders, residency directors, and clinicians working to standardize and enhance patient care.

Here's what stood out.

AI in healthcare: Trust and implementation are everything

One of the most anticipated sessions, "Artificial Intelligence and Patient Safety: Best Friends…or Worst Enemies?" reinforced a critical truth: AI's value in healthcare depends entirely on how it's implemented.

Generic AI tools that pull from unvetted sources or operate as "black boxes" create more problems than they solve—introducing risk, eroding clinician trust, and adding to information fatigue. The real opportunity lies in AI that uses institution-specific vetted knowledge and enhances clinical decision-making without disruption.

This aligns with what we're hearing from anesthesiology departments nationwide: AI must be purpose-built for clinical environments, not adapted from consumer applications. 

Quality improvement needs workflow-native solutions

The abstract featuring C8 Health—"Enhancing Clinical Workflow Through a Quality Initiative: Usability Assessment of the C8-Health mHealth Tool"—demonstrated how workflow-native technology drives measurable improvements in protocol adherence and clinical efficiency.

When quality interventions require clinicians to break from their workflow, adoption stalls. But when evidence-based guidance is delivered at the point of care—embedded in Epic, accessible via mobile, and tailored to the clinician's role and schedule—it becomes part of daily practice rather than an added burden.

Real-world data continues to validate this approach, with departments reporting significant improvements in protocol access, staff satisfaction, and quality metric alignment.

The knowledge chaos problem

Throughout the weekend, a consistent theme emerged in our booth conversations: Anesthesiology departments are experiencing knowledge chaos. Leaders described the same challenges:

• Institutional guidance scattered across SharePoint, email attachments, and outdated PDFs
• Difficulty ensuring residents and faculty access the most current, vetted protocols
• Time wasted searching for information that should be instantly available
• Gaps between departmental protocols and national guidelines like those from ASA
• No clear way to track protocol adherence or measure quality improvements

One residency director put it bluntly: "We have excellent protocols, checklists, and guidance. The problem is no one can find them when they actually need them."

The problem isn’t clinical expertise—it’s access. And it’s adversely affecting patient care.

Learning from leading anesthesia departments

The departments seeing the most success are those treating protocol access as a strategic priority, not just an IT issue. They're implementing platforms that:

• Centralize vetted guidance from institutional, national, and specialty society sources—including ASA's standards, practice guidelines, and statements through our new collaboration announced at the conference.
• Integrate into existing workflows rather than requiring clinicians to switch between systems. Epic integration and mobile accessibility are table stakes.
• Deliver proactive, context-aware recommendations based on the clinician's schedule, role, and patient context—not just passive document repositories.
• Create measurable accountability through analytics that show which protocols are being accessed, where gaps exist, and how adherence connects to quality outcomes.

Our case study on AMC anesthesia implementation shows exactly how this plays out in practice: 5x improvement in timely protocol access, 4x increase in staff satisfaction, and measurable quality score improvements—all within one month of rollout.

What's Next

ANESTHESIOLOGY 2025 reinforced that the specialty is ready to move beyond knowledge management Band-Aids. Departments want solutions that respect clinical workflows, integrate with existing systems, and deliver measurable ROI.

If you're exploring ways to solve protocol chaos, improve resident training, or connect quality goals to daily practice, we'd be happy to continue the conversation.

Book a demo to see how C8 Health helps anesthesiology departments bridge the gap from evidence to practice.

C8 Health is on a mission to eliminate care inconsistency by bridging the gap between clinical protocols and real-world practice. Trusted by over 100 leading hospitals including Mount Sinai, UCSF Health, and Brigham & Women's, C8 Health enables healthcare teams to implement their best practices effectively and efficiently.