ORLANDO – Adopting a 28-point significantly reduced length of stay without significant effects on complications or readmissions, according to interim results of a large, nationwide surgical quality initiative.
Dr. Stacy A. Brethauer
Thirty-six centers participated in this pilot initiative, making it one of the largest national projects focused on enhanced recovery to date, according to Stacy A. Brethauer, MD, FACS, cochair of the Quality and Data Committee of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP).
The initiative, known as Employing New Enhanced Recovery Goals for Bariatric Surgery (ENERGY), was developed in light of “huge gaps in literature and knowledge” about what best practices of enhanced recovery should look like for bariatric surgery, Dr. Brethauer said in a podium presentation at the American College of Surgeons Quality and Safety Conference.
“Bariatric surgery is very pathway driven, but the pathway can be very cumbersome and very antiquated if you don’t keep it up to date and evidence based,” said Dr. Brethauer, associate professor of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.
Invitations to join in the ENERGY pilot were targeted to the 80 or so MBSAQIP-accredited centers in the top decile of programs for length of stay. “That’s the needle that we want to move,” Dr. Brethauer said.
ENERGY includes interventions in the preoperative, perioperative, and postoperative setting for each patient who undergoes a primary band, lap sleeve, or lap bypass procedure.
The 36 participating centers were asked to document 28 discrete process measures, starting with “did the patient stop smoking before surgery?” and ending with “did the patient have a follow-up clinic appointment scheduled?” Each one was entered by a trained clinical reviewer. The program included monthly audits for each participating center.
Data collection started on July 1, 2017, and continued to June 30, 2018, following a 6-month run-up period to allow centers to incorporate the measures.
The interim analysis presented included 4,700 patients who underwent procedures in the first 6 months of the data collection period. Nearly 60% (2,790 patients) had a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, while about 40% (1,896 patients) underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass, and 0.1% (6 patients) had a band procedure.
Average length of stay was 1.76 days in the first 6 months of the pilot, down from 2.24 days in 2016 for those same participating centers (P less than .001), Dr. Brethauer reported.
Similarly, the rate of extended length of stay was 4.4% in the first 6 months of the pilot, down from 8.2% in 2016. Extended length of stay decreased with increasing adherence to the protocol, Dr. Brethauer and his colleagues found in their analysis.
Those length-of-stay reductions were accomplished with no increase in bleeding rates, all-cause reoperation rates, or readmissions. “We’re not doing this at the expense of other complications,” Dr. Brethauer said in a comment on the results.
Adherence to the 28 ENERGY measures increased from 26% in the first month of the pilot to 80.2% in March 2017, the latest month included in the interim analysis.
Opioid-sparing pain management strategies are incorporated into ENERGY. Over the first six months of the pilot, the average proportion of patients receiving no opioids postoperatively was 26.8%.
The ultimate goal of ENERGY is a large-scale rollout of enhanced recovery strategies, according to Dr. Brethauer.
ENERGY is the second national quality improvement project of the MBSAQIP. In the first, known as Decreasing Readmissions through Opportunities Provided (DROP), 128 U.S. hospitals implemented a set of standard processes organized into preoperative, inpatient, and postoperative care bundles. Results of a yearlong study of the DROP intervention demonstrated a significant reduction in 30-day all-cause hospital readmissions following sleeve gastrectomy.
“If you look at what’s happened in our specialty, and all the changes and all the work that’s been done, it’s really quite impressive,” Dr. Brethauer told attendees at the meeting. “It’s something that we’re very proud of. “
Dr. Brethauer reported disclosures related to Medtronic and Ethicon outside of the scope of this presentation.