An anesthesia protocol contains the written documentation of all perioperative incidents, measures or medications, chronologically and with time specification.

These measures preceding, during and after the operation extend from the immediate preoperative patient identification to the adjusting of the surgical indication along with the preparation of the requisite operating area and finally up to the checklist-supported inspection of the entire anesthetic equipment and all the procedures.

The anesthesia protocol documents premedication, introduction and maintenance of the anesthesia as well as all data and vital parameters regarding the anesthesia and the operation and furthermore, all measures and materials relevant to the anesthesia: among others, anesthetic procedures, types of tubes, respiratory techniques, anesthetic machines, accesses established, positioning, AV blocks, drainages, intervention types and also the surgical and anesthetic personnel.

Anesthesia protocols are prepared by making marks and entries in ready-made protocol forms. The set of documents consists of the three forms premedication, documentation of the operation and recovery room documentation.

Optical mark readers are responsible for transferring the paper-based data of the anesthesia protocol (original document) quickly and without loss to digital data records which are then directly available for further processing in the respective databases, for example, for the preparation of statistics, for quality assurance in anesthesia or for archiving purposes.