EBPOM Emphasizes Importance of Perioperative Preparations in Improving Surgical Outcomes
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By: Saparja Nag Mar. 12, 2018
How can healthcare teams ensure that patients undergoing surgery are at the lowest risk possible for complications both during and after their operation? The international project EBPOM, Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine, seeks to answer this question to improve quality outcomes for surgical patients. In their own words, they aim to “promote the examination, discussion and application of evidence based medicine to perioperative care.” This involves identifying preoperative conditions and illnesses that often lead to further intraoperative and postoperative complications or comorbidities, and then pinpointing such conditions in candidate patients.
Traditional perioperative medicine focused primarily on the intraoperative and postoperative patient care to perform more efficient surgeries and handle complications as swiftly as possible when they arose. In the past, physicians addressed major risk factors such as smoking or obesity in order to improve outcomes but have failed to take into account a patient’s entire medical history. Now organizations like EBPOM are placing emphasis on other chronic preoperative factors like diabetes, anemia, a sedentary lifestyle, and mental health issues in order to prevent complications altogether. This more holistic approach to surgical procedures may delay operations in some cases but will also drastically improve postoperative quality outcomes.
Academic health systems such as Duke University Health System and University of Michigan Health System have also formed programs that address these issues head on by identifying patients at risk for complications and preparing them for their procedures. Monitoring and addressing these issues have been shown to have a considerable impact on the patients’ quality outcomes.
EBPOM’s US conference for perioperative care is on April 13th-15th in Atlanta, GA. It will focus on patient identification, condition management, and implementation of perioperative care pathways. The conference features many Duke Health associated names including Dr. Solomon Aronson, Professor Monty Mythen of University College London (UK), and Professor Mike Grocott of University of Southampton (UK). Registration can be found here.
When discussing the significance of the EBPOM organization, Dr. Solomon stated, “We are excited to announce that EBPOM-USA provides consulting for value enhancement in perioperative care. Together with Dexur, we now offer institution-specific evaluation and process implementation coaching to advance site specific value in the perioperative care tailor to each institution.”
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