STOCKHOLM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS®) Society is an international organization dedicated to the generation, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of enhanced recovery programs across multiple surgical specialties. The ERAS Society’s 6th Annual World Congress was recently held in Stockholm, Sweden. ERAS experts met to discuss, debate and develop optimal evidenced based enhanced recovery protocols after surgery. This diverse group of attendees formed the ideal backdrop for the official induction of ERAS Cardiac Surgery as the official cardiac surgical specialty group representing the ERAS Society. In addition, ERAS Cardiac Surgery has been granted the distinct privilege to propose which institutions should be appointed ERAS Centers of Excellence in Cardiac Surgery.
Founded in 2017, ERAS® Cardiac Surgery has a mission to facilitate optimization of perioperative care of cardiac surgical patients through collaborative discovery, analysis, expert consensus, and dissemination of best practices. This will result in greater patient and healthcare provider satisfaction, improvements in both short and long-term outcomes, reduced complications, and more efficient utilization of health care resources.
The organizing committee for ERAS Cardiac Surgery includes Daniel Engelman, MD, and Richard Engelman, MD, Baystate Medical Center, Judson Williams, MD, WakeMed Health and Hospitals, Edward Boyle, MD, St. Charles Medical Center, Alex Gregory, MD, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Louis P. Perrault, MD, Ph.D., Montreal Heart Institute, Marjan Jahangiri, MBBS MS, St. George’s, University of London, Ali Khoynezhad, MD, MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute, Rakesh C. Arora, MD, St. Boniface General Hospital, Eric Roselli, MD, Cleveland Clinic, V. Seenu Reddy, MD, Centennial Heart & Vascular Center, Marc Gerdisch, MD, Franciscan Health Heart Center, Jerrold Levy, MD, Duke University, Kevin Lobdell, MD, Atrium Health, Nick Fletcher, MBBS, St George’s, University of London, Matthias Kirsch, MD, CHUV Cardiac Surgery Centre, University Hospital Vaudois, and Gregg Nelson, MD, University of Calgary.
A dedicated cardiac surgery session was held during the World Congress, with speakers from around the world and across all subspecialties. Topics discussed included the impact of frailty, physical pre-conditioning, active clearance of chest tubes to prevent retained blood, opioid-sparing analgesic strategies, optimization of lung function, and the application of advanced organizational strategies for implementing ERAS protocols. The highlight of the session was the presentation and audience discussion of the first ERAS Cardiac Surgery Consensus Statement (recently presented at the AATS Annual Meeting in San Diego). This extensive compilation of evidence-based recommendations is the initial step towards a comprehensive approach for enhanced recovery in cardiac surgical patients. It includes items such as nutrition, lifestyle modification, use of kidney biomarkers, sternal fixation and chest tube drainage, temperature and glucose management, goal-directed therapy, and patient education. The enthusiasm and engagement of the audience was impressive, demonstrating the passion around the world for this endeavour.
“This is an important next step as we broaden our inclusiveness to include all multidisciplinary practitioners who care for cardiac surgical patients, and broaden our international collaboration,” said Daniel Engelman, MD, President of ERAS Cardiac Surgery. “The participation of intensivists, anesthesiologists, perfusionists, nurses, occupational and physio-therapists, pharmacists, and hospital administrators is critical to achieving our mission. We will all benefit from the expertise of an engaged and expert international pool of individuals who share the same enthusiasm and passion for providing state-of-the-art, best practice care for their patients.”
“We are pleased to welcome the enthusiastic support of the ERAS Cardiac Surgery group to our consortium of international experts developing and implementing ERAS protocols around the world,” said Olle Ljungqvist, MD, Executive Chairman of ERAS Society International. “Cardiac surgeons pioneered fast track recovery, the forerunner of ERAS, so it’s great to see the specialty take this to the next level through the formation of this organization.”
“As a next step, we will be working to expand our membership program so we can more fully engage interested parties from the full spectrum of practitioners including surgeons, anesthsiologists, perfusionists, mid-level providers, nurses, physical and occupational therapists, pharmacists, and hospital administrators who have a passion for enhanced recovery,” said Alex Gregory, MD, Secretary, ERAS Cardiac Surgery. “This, along with further collaboration with the other ERAS Specialty Societies, will bring together panels of experts who can help us design evidenced based consensus statements and best practices that individual programs can use as they craft their own ERAS Cardiac programs.”
ERAS® Cardiac Surgery is a non-profit organization with the mission to develop evidence-based expert consensus statements promoting best practice recovery practices. The goal is to provide hospitals better guidance for developing local protocols that are part of a continuous quality improvement (CQI) process for better patient care and a reduction of postoperative complications and costs after cardiothoracic surgery (www.erascardiac.org) Focusing on cardiac surgery, our organization is collaborating with ERAS® (www.erassociety.org), an organization that promotes enhanced recovery in many other surgical specialties worldwide. Contact Alex Gregory, MD: Alex.Gregory@albertahealthservices.ca
The ERAS® Society (www.erassociety.org) is an international, non-profit, multi-professional and multi-disciplinary medical society registered in Sweden devoted to the improvement of perioperative care, most commonly referred to as “Enhanced Recovery After Surgery" or "ERAS." The ERAS® Society is comprised of leaders and developers of care for patients undergoing surgery in a large range of surgical specialties. The ERAS® Study Group and later the ERAS® Society was assembled by Professor Ken Fearon, University of Edinburgh, UK and Professor Olle Ljungqvist, Karolinska Insitutet, Sweden in 2001.