Guidelines in Practice: Local‐Only Anesthesia

Patients undergoing procedures with local-only anesthesia experience a unique wide-awake approach to perioperative care, often without an anesthesia professional present. Implementing recommended practices can strengthen perioperative safety and support patient care goals. The recently updated AORN "Guideline for care of the patient receiving local-only anesthesia" provides perioperative nurses and clinical teams with background information on administration of local anesthetics and effective methods for providing patient care when an anesthesia professional is not present. This article provides an overview of the guideline and discusses recommendations for preoperative assessment and individualized plan of care, local anesthetic administration and intraoperative care, postoperative care and discharge planning, adverse reactions, education, and policies and procedures. It also includes a scenario describing specific concerns associated with monitoring the patient receiving local-only anesthesia. Perioperative nurses should review the guideline in its entirety and apply the recommendations when caring for patients who are undergoing procedures with local-only anesthesia.