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