A retrospective review of effectiveness of ERAS post-operative pain protocol in hip replacement surgeries under general anaesthesia at a tertiary orthopaedic hospital

Abstract

: The concept of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) was first introduced in 1997 by a group of European surgeons led by Henrik Kehlet. The ERAS concept was introduced to target the factors delaying post-operative recovery such as organ dysfunction, surgical stress and to improve the surgical outcomes and length of stay at the hospital. The primary aim of this approach is to reduce the body’s response to surgical stress by implementing a multidisciplinary, multitude of interventions in a coordinated clinical pathway. It was first implemented for colorectal surgeries to improve the post-surgical recovery rates by decreasing the post-operative ileus and thereby reducing the cost and length of hospital stay. Since the successful introduction of the program, ERAS has been used in several other specialties such as breast, urological, gynaecological, and musculoskeletal procedures. Off-late ERAS has become important in orthopaedic surgeries, particularly elective hip and knee arthroplasties. A retrospective review audit was conducted at tertiary Orthopaedic NHS Hospital to determine the effectiveness of ERAS post-operative pain protocol in patients who had primary hip arthroplasty under general anaesthesia. The qualitative and quantitative data included the length of stay at the hospital and default rates in the ERAS pain protocol. The length of stay at the hospital in ERAS compliant group was a mean of 3.95 days and in ERAS default group was 4.7 days, showing an increase of 16% in the total duration. The IV PCA group had 4.6 days of the average length of stay.: ERAS pathway advocates for using opioid-sparing multimodal analgesia to control pain, peripheral nerve blocks (single-shot/continuous), and local infiltration /peri-articular injections have become a better alternative to opioids in controlling the immediate post-surgical pain effectively. There is clear evidence to suggest that these techniques can improve patient outcomes and decrease the duration of stay.