Aldrete's scoring system

Aldrete's scoring system is a commonly used scale for determining when postsurgical patients can be safely discharged from the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), generally to a second stage (phase II) recovery area, hospital ward, or home. It was devised in 1970 by , a Mexican anesthesiologist, while working at the Denver Veterans Affairs Hospital.

Scoring system

The original scoring system was developed before the invention of pulse oximetry and used the patient's colouration as a surrogate marker of their oxygenation status. A modified Aldrete scoring system was described in 1995 which replaces the assessment of skin colouration with the use of pulse oximetry to measure SpO₂.

Limitations

Alternatives

The following criteria also exist:

• White in 1999 proposed "fast-track criteria" to determine if patients can be transferred straight from theatre to Phase II recovery. He proposes a minimum overall score of 12 with no score <1 in any category. He includes consciousness, activity, circulation, respiration, oxygen saturations, pain and emesis. This does not include bleeding or urine output. This was used by Song et al. 2004.
• Post anaesthetic discharge scoring system (PADSS) used by Chung et al. 1995.
• Discharge criteria tool used by Brown et al. 2008.
• DASAIM discharge assessment tool used by Gartner et al. 2010.

References