Is Pakistan ready for ‘Enhanced Recovery After Surgery’ (ERAS)?

Abstract

The concept of ‘Enhanced Recovery After Surgery’ (ERAS) was introduced over 15 years ago, and consisted of multimodal pain management, measures to decrease the perioperative stress response and the use of minimally invasive surgical techniques, and resulted in a decreased duration of postoperative hospitalization and increased patient satisfaction. The concept has been proved beneficial after long standing clinical experience and well-designed studies that continue to demonstrate shortened recovery and decreased postoperative morbidity. Enhanced recovery programs require close cooperation between all members of the care team including anesthesiologists, surgeons and nursing staff. In order to adopt ERAS in Pakistan, healthcare teams will need to carefully examine current surgical outcomes and the existing literature in order to implement well designed protocols to benefit to the local patient population.