‘Fast-track’ surgery was pioneered by Professor Henrik Kehlet in Denmark in the early 1990s. The anticipated goal is to facilitate postoperative recovery, reduce hospital stay and improve the patient’s experience. A multimodal approach and complementing techniques aim to decrease post-surgical organ dysfunction and complications, and hence to improve postoperative recovery. Hospitals and health care services that have pioneered this approach have achieved impressive reductions in hospital stay and surgical complications.
The core principles of fast-track surgery (or enhanced recovery) programmes are:
- Accurate assessment of the patient’s condition
- Combine surgical treatment with nursing, anaesthesia, pain management, nutrition, psychology, physiotherapy, and other multidisciplinary treatments as required.
- Early post-operative mobilization
- Pain control
- Reduction of post-operative stress
- Accelerated recovery
- Shortened hospital stay
- Expedited psychological recovery
