R

Rapid & reliable: term used by PUMA to describe the situation in which the airway management risk assessment indicates that any impediments to achieving ‘airway success’ with a given airway lifeline (facemask, supraglottic airway or tracheal tube) will be able to be readily overcome. To qualify as ‘rapid’ the projected timeframe for achieving airway success by a given lifeline should approximate that for its routine performance by a skilled practitioner. To qualify as ‘reliable’ it should be expected that a stable airway could be achieved with a single attempt at that lifeline if necessary.

‘Read-do’ checklist: this refers to a format for checklist use in which each item on the checklist is used to prompt subsequent real-time performance of tasks (as opposed to a ‘do-confirm’ format where each item is intend to confirm prior performance of a task). A ‘read-do’ format is best suited to activities that are unanticipated/unusual or where omission/resequencing of a step may have critical consequences. Once the team is ready to perform the relevant activity, each item on the checklist should be read aloud by the designated team coordinator with the appropriate team members performing the declared tasks in real-time and verbally confirming their completion. Checklists should be developed with clear understanding of whether a ‘read-do’ or ‘do-confirm’ format is most appropriate to the tasks being undertaken. Teams should be trained in a simulated setting to adopt the appropriate format for using a given checklist prior to using them clinically. 

Re-oxygenation (of the functional residual capacity): restoring the oxygen reservoir in the functional residual capacity of a patient’s lungs, after initiation of airway management, by ventilating with a high inspired oxygen concentration.

Replacement: technique for substituting between successful airway lifelines that inevitably involves interrupting alveolar ventilation without providing a conduit to facilitate airway restoration (e.g. removing a supraglottic airway to attempt tracheal intubation). As such, they are less safe than conversion techniques. The distinction between conversion and replacement as techniques to substitute airways was originally described by the Vortex Approach.