The Surgical clinics of North America
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Although the utilization of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathways has become more prevalent, issues of compliance and implementation remain. Limiting the complexity of new ERAS protocols by maintaining the core elements of ERAS, along with the development of complementary protocols (prehabilitation, the perioperative surgical home, and telemedicine) may improve overall uptake and subsequent patient outcomes. The future directions of ERAS should be centered on improving the dissemination of the practice and ongoing expansion of patient care outside the immediate hospital period.
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Surg. Clin. North Am. · Dec 2018
ReviewEnhanced Recovery After Surgery and Multimodal Strategies for Analgesia.
Enhanced recovery after surgery is an evidence-based, multimodal approach to the perioperative care of a patient undergoing surgery. These pathways seek to attenuate the stress response to surgery facilitating postoperative recovery. ⋯ Traditional analgesic regimens for major surgery rely heavily on opioids to provide analgesia but can cause a wide range of serious side effects, delaying recovery. Enhanced recovery protocols should incorporate multimodal analgesic strategies that minimize opioid use and optimize analgesia.
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Surg. Clin. North Am. · Dec 2018
ReviewEnhanced Recovery After Surgery and Effects on Quality Metrics.
Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) is an evidence-based protocol that aims to decrease the physiologic stress response to surgery and maintain postoperative physiologic function. This best practice bundle plays a significant role in improving surgical quality by impacting important quality metrics such as length of stay, hospital-acquired infections, readmissions, and patient experience. Adherence to ERAS as a collective bundle is more important than individual components in improving quality metrics, and this can only be achieved with data-driven information through auditing and interdisciplinary collaboration.
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Value in health care is defined as the best outcome that matters to the patient at the lowest cost. Therefore, a valuable intervention is one that either results in better outcomes at the same cost, the same outcomes at lower cost, or in the best-case scenario, better outcomes at lower cost. ⋯ ERPs do not increase overall costs, even when implementation and maintenance costs are considered. More research on patient-reported outcomes and other downstream effects of ERPs is required to fully characterize their true value.
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Enhanced recovery after surgery programs were developed as a type of standardized evidence-based perioperative care protocols. The necessity and benefit of clinical care pathways is not a new phenomenon in urology and have been a big part of the evolution of care for urology patients, especially in terms of urologic oncology. This article discusses the key components of evidence-based perioperative care in key urologic procedures. These protocols have been shown to decrease length of stay, decrease complications, and reduce cost.