The Case for Improvement in Perioperative Medicine


Key Points

  • Despite enormous strides in the reduction of intraoperative risk, the incidence of postoperative complications remains high and perioperative care is frequently fragmented.

  • Significant variability in healthcare outcomes across different hospitals and hospital systems exists.

  • Relatively new tools of improvement science, implementation science, and safety science should be accelerators of change and integrate into evidence-based pathways of care.

  • Fundamental interventions include:

    • proactive engagement in a patient's health and optimization for surgery

    • segmenting patients based on complexity and risk

    • implementation of data-driven and evidence-based perioperative pathways

    • positively affecting population health by using the surgical experience to reengage patients in their own health care

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