Perioperative pain management remains challenging, as inadequate analgesia may delay recovery and increase opioid exposure. Multidisciplinary pain management (MPM) emphasizes multimodal and collaborative strategies, creating opportunities for integrating non-pharmacological interventions. Acupuncture anesthesia (AA), derived from traditional Chinese medicine, has re-emerged as a potential adjunct in perioperative care through modulation of nociceptive transmission, stress responses, and opioid requirements. This review summarizes the historical development, proposed neuroimmune mechanisms, and current clinical applications of AA in modern perioperative settings. Evidence from randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses suggests that AA may reduce postoperative pain scores, opioid consumption, and postoperative nausea and vomiting, and facilitate recovery in selected procedures. Moderate-level evidence supports its adjunctive role in gastrointestinal, orthopedic, and gynecological surgeries, whereas evidence in thoracic, cardiac, and highly invasive procedures remains limited and inconsistent. Critically, current evidence is constrained by small sample sizes, heterogeneous acupuncture protocols, inadequate blinding, regional concentration of studies, and insufficient long-term outcome reporting. These limitations reduce external validity and hinder guideline-level recommendations. Overall, AA shows promise as part of MPM pathways, particularly in enhanced recovery protocols, but standardized intervention protocols and large multicenter high-quality trials are needed before broader implementation in perioperative anesthesia practice.

Cycloastragenol, a key bioactive compound extracted from Astragalus membranaceus, has attracted increasing attention for its therapeutic potential in anti-aging, cancer treatment, and fibrosis prevention. This review summarizes the pharmacological activities of Cycloastragenol at molecular, cellular, and systemic levels, and discusses its efficacy across various disease models and potential perioperative applications. Current evidence demonstrates that Cycloastragenol exerts dose-dependent therapeutic efficacy through specific molecular targets. However, its clinical translation remains limited, particularly in surgical recovery contexts, underscoring the need for further validation through well-designed clinical trials focused on perioperative outcomes.

Background: Hospital outpatient services handle a large number of patients daily, with busy and standardized processes, making them crucial to the hospital' s daily operations. Approximately one-third of outpatients seek assistance at the information desk daily, with 60% of these inquiries related to department location and the treatment process. Despite the hospital displaying prominent maps and signs, many patients still get lost, repeatedly search for departments, or endure long waits, hindering patient satisfaction. Objective: To design and implement an intelligent indoor navigation system deeply integrated with the hospital information system (HIS). This system helps patients quickly and conveniently plan their routes, improve the overall medical experience, reduce the workload of medical staff and hospital operating costs, and implement the hospital' s "one-phone-for-all" outpatient service process optimization concept. Methods: This study constructed a real-time navigation system integrating Bluetooth iBeacon positioning technology, a 3D electronic map, and a WeChat official account platform. The system architecture is deeply integrated with the HIS to achieve proactive navigation based on the treatment process. This study employed a retrospective cohort analysis to compare the differences in patient time spent on key medical routes before and after the system' s implementation, and analyzed its application effectiveness using actual system usage data. Results: The system provides real-time, intelligent, and dynamic route guidance and path planning, effectively reducing patient navigation time, optimizing the medical experience, and lowering the workload and operating costs of patient guidance services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the system provided strong support for the implementation of hospital epidemic prevention measures, reduced unnecessary contact between medical staff and patients, and ensured the safety of both.