Enhanced Recovery After Surgery

Welcome to the ERAS website for our department!

As you may be aware, there currently exists a number of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols in our department. ERAS is a multimodal, multidisciplinary approach that utilizes evidence based medicine to inform best practices during the perioperative period. The approach began in Europe in the 1990s, and since then has spread to a number of academic and community-based hospitals in the United States. The goal is to reduce postoperative complications and enhance a patient’s recovery through various interventions, such as preoperative optimization, early postoperative mobilization, and early postoperative PO intake, to name a few.

As ERAS protocols encompass the entire perioperative spectrum, from preadmission, preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods, a multidisciplinary team comprised of anesthesiologists, surgeons, nurses, and nutritionists is necessary for their development and implementation. In our department, Dr. Ali Djalali wrote the intraoperative portion of the ERAS protocol for colorectal cases, and Drs. Martin Angst and Karl Zheng wrote the intraoperative portion of the ERAS protocol for spine cases, and Dr. Aileen Adriano (along with Dr. Riley, Lipman, Horn and Ottestad) wrote the intraoperative protocol for the Gyn pathways. These pathways were developed in conjunction with the Interventional Home group (with Drs. Sam Wald and Cliff Schmiesing). Their contributions highlight the aspects of evidence-based intraoperative care shown to facilitate recovery and are already considered standard in our department, including multimodal analgesia, PONV prophylaxis, thromboembolic prophylaxis, maintaining euvolemia, and maintaining normothermia, among others. If you have any questions about the protocols or are interested in learning more about ERAS, please feel free to contact Dr. Amy Lu at aclu@stanford.edu.

 

ERAS Websites for further reading

ERAS Society
https://erassociety.org/

American Society for Enhanced Recovery
https://www.aserhq.org/web/