Current Status of and Barriers to the Implementation of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery in 77 Tertiary Hospitals

Abstract

To investigate the status of and obstacles to the implementation of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) in tertiary-care general hospitals in China. Questionnaire on the Current Status of and Barriers to the Implementation of ERAS in Tertiary-Care Hospitals, a self-developed questionnaire, was used to conduct a survey of 77 tertiary hospitals from 21 provinces across China between May 2022 and June 2022. The participating hospitals were selected by convenience sampling. The questionnaire on the current implementation status of ERAS was mainly focused on the departments involved and the ERAS programs implemented, incorporating a total of 25 items of three dimensions, preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative. The answer to each question consisted of 5 options from "never" to "always", which corresponded to 1 to 5 points on the scoring scale, with the higher scores indicating better implementation of the program concerned. In the questionnaire on barriers to ERAS implementation and recommendations, 10 items of two dimensions, including hospital management, and patient and caregiver, were concerned with the barriers to implementation. The answer to each question consisted of 5 options from "disagree" to "strongly agree", which corresponded to 1 to 5 points on the scoring scale, with the higher scores indicating the greater importance of the barriers. ERAS programs were implemented in 73 (94.8%) hospitals. The best-implemented items were preoperative education (4.73±0.51), prevention and treatment of deep vein thrombosis (4.55±0.71), and postoperative follow-up (4.40±0.81). The items of poor implementation status were preoperative prehabilitation (2.71±1.40), preoperative oral carbohydrate drinks (3.03±1.49), and early ambulation after surgeries (3.04±1.22). The main obstacles to ERAS implementation included a lack of effective incentive systems, poor motivation among the medical and nursing staffs (3.21±0.93), a lack of disease-specific clinical implementation pathways (3.16±1.06), and a lack of experience in multidisciplinary teamwork (2.98±1.17). There is a high rate of ERAS implementation in tertiary general hospitals in China, but clinical implementation and dissemination are still confronted with many obstacles.