Supraglottic Airway Management (v2)

Course overview

Ensuring an airway is the first step in patient assessment. Educators stress the importance of airway, airway management, and having a conduit for oxygenation. As important as the airway is, many providers hurry past this priority during their assessments or do not recognize when an airway is no longer viable. Advanced providers will often seek the most invasive tools to manage the airway when a lesser tool will do the job equally well without the risk of complication. Sadly, many studies show that EMS providers are not skilled in recognizing when an airway is compromised or that a procedure has gone bad, and the outcomes to the patient are catastrophic. This program reviews the priority of airway assessment, basic anatomy, and the importance of managing an airway with whatever means is most effective, not most technical. All airways discussed in this program fall in the category of supraglottic, as they are not inserted past the glottic opening (through the vocal cords). There is some differentiation with extraglottic and retroglottic airways, solely due to final position of the distal end of the airway device.