We announce the release of two practice guideline/expert consensus statements with their publication in this issue of the Asian Journal of Anesthesiology. “Endotracheal Intubation in Patients With COVID-19 Infection: Expert Panel-Based Consensus Recommendations”, was produced by 6 authors with and on behalf of the Taiwan Society of Anesthesiologists and some of them in their capacities as members of our Advanced Airway Committee (under Chair Chia-Wen Chen).¹

Second, we publish “Clinical Guidance of Mild to Moderate Sedation—An Expert Consensus by the Taiwan Society of Anesthesiologists” written by our Ambulatory Anesthesia and Sedation Committee (under Chair Boci-Chuan Su and immediate past chair Kuang-I Cheng).²

Experts around the world have recognized that Taiwan’s experience during the 2002 emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has informed international public health responses to subsequent novel influenza outbreaks as well as to the current COVID-19 pandemic.^3-5 Our guidance for endotracheal intubation of people infected with COVID-19 is by design brief yet has been distilled from a comprehensive literature review and in-depth expert discussion. Its scope contemplates personal protective equipment protocols, preoxygenation, double-gloving, rapid sequence intubation, and contingency formulations. We hope that it will be useful to colleagues in Taiwan and for experts elsewhere as they construct or review their own local guidelines.

Our second work product, the guidelines for mild to moderate sedation, is in substantial part adapted from the “Practice Guidelines for Moderate Procedural Sedation and Analgesia 2018”,⁶ a project of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and collaborators. That document codified a major shift from propounding lower level sedation guidelines for non-anesthesiologists to propounding such for any qualified medical professional. We have retained this approach and added mild sedation to the purview of our document. Our consensus statement, developed by the Standing Committee for Ambulatory Anesthesia and Sedation of Taiwan Society of Anesthesiologists, suggests practice standards for sedation ranging from mild, reduction of anxiety, to moderate—defined as relating to a level of consciousness sufficiently shallow that a patient can respond to tactile stimulation (at higher-order responses than reflexes). The statement defines levels of sedation, addresses personnel qualification and training, pre-procedure evaluation and protocol, intra-procedure monitoring, and recovery. As with the COVID-19/intubation guidance, we hope this serves as a reference not only within Taiwan but to others as they construct or update their local guidelines.

Great credit goes to all of my colleagues at the Taiwan Society of Anesthesiologists: each has contributed directly or indirectly. T ADAPTE Collaboration 2009 rightly stated in the first sentence of the executive summary for its 95-page guideline development resource toolkit: “... [M]ost organizations are under pressure to produce more guidelines in a shorter time with increasingly limited resources.”⁷ Thus, while both of our practice guidance documents are in significant part adapted from the valuable work of others, they each represent remarkable achievements and I here introduce them with great pride in my colleagues at the Taiwan Society of Anesthesiologists.

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