Why the study?
Do enhanced recovery programmes improve outcomes such as length of stay and complication rates in older adults undergoing elective inpatient surgery?
Do enhanced recovery programmes improve outcomes such as length of stay and complication rates in older adults undergoing elective inpatient surgery?
While enhanced recovery programmes are associated with decreased length of stay in older surgical patients, future research must prioritize patient-reported outcomes and the management of patients with complex needs.
Multicomponent peri-operative interventions offer to accelerate patient recovery and improve cost-effectiveness. The recent National Institute of Health Research-commissioned evidence synthesis review by Nunns et al. considers the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of all types of multicomponent interventions for older adults undergoing elective inpatient surgery. Enhanced recovery programmes (ERPs) were the most commonly evaluated intervention. An association between ERPs and decreased length of stay was observed, whilst complication rates and time to recovery were static or sometimes reduced. Important areas which lack research in the context of ERPs are patient-reported outcome measures, patients with complex needs and assessment of factors pertaining to successful ERP implementation. The next generation of ERP studies should seek to develop our understanding in these key areas.
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Nunns et al. (2020) studied this question.
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