Best Clinical AI Tools for Anesthesiology

Anesthesiologists make more high-stakes pharmacological decisions per hour than almost any other physician. Induction alone involves selecting and dosing an induction agent (propofol, etomidate, ketamine), a neuromuscular blocker (succinylcholine, rocuronium), an opioid (fentanyl, remifentanil), and often a benzodiazepine — each dose customized to the patient's weight, age, comorbidities, and hemodynamic status. A 2018 analysis in Anesthesiology found that anesthesia providers make approximately one drug administration every 3.4 minutes during the average general anesthetic. Airway management represents another critical CDS application. The ASA Difficult Airway Algorithm is a complex, branching decision tree that must be executed under time pressure when a patient cannot be ventilated. Tools that provide rapid access to this algorithm — and the modifications for pediatric, obstetric, and morbidly obese patients — can be genuinely life-saving. Perioperative medicine, increasingly the domain of anesthesiologists, adds another layer of complexity. Preoperative optimization of cardiac medications, diabetes management, anticoagulation bridging, and PONV prophylaxis protocols all require evidence-based guidance. Our anesthesiology rankings assess how well CDS platforms support the unique pharmacological precision and time-critical decision-making that defines this specialty.