Perioperative Team Management Was Beneficially Associated with Prolonged Postoperative Hospital Stays after Long Lower-Abdominal Surgeries

Our hospital began a PERIO program (perioperative patient management by a multi-disciplinary team from multiple departments) in 2016 to improve patient outcomes. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical effects of the PERIO program regarding the postoperative hospital stay (PHS) in the patients aged ≥ 18 years who underwent long lower-abdominal surgery at our hospital during the period April 2019 to March 2023. We excluded the cases of patients whose general anesthesia use was < 8 h, those for whom another surgery was performed simultaneously at another site, and emergency surgeries. The outcome was prolonged PHS, defined as exceeding the scheduled number of days specified in the patient’s clinical pathway. Among the 480 patients, prolonged PHS was observed for 270 patients (56.3%). In a multivariate logistic regression using advanced age, sex, high-risk general state, surgery requiring colon resection, serious adverse events (SAEs), and PERIO use, the following were associated with prolonged PHS: advance age (odds ratio [OR] 4.91, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.68-8.99, p=0.01), surgery requiring colon resection (OR 4.91, 95%CI: 2.68-8.99, p<0.001), SAE (OR 18.7, 95%CI: 7.22-48.2, p<0.001), and PERIO (OR 0.25, 95%CI: 0.13-0.47, p<0.001). The use of the PERIO program was thus beneficially associated with PHS after long lower-abdominal surgery.