Pathway redesign: putting patients ahead of professionals

Many perioperative clinical pathways, and therefore patient journeys, are focused around provider, rather than patient, convenience. Business process re-engineering (BPRE) offers a framework for transformative process-change with the aim of improving 'consumer experience' and efficiency and may be an effective driver for improving patient experience and value within healthcare. Involvement of patients in service and pathway design, through experience-based codesign, is increasingly prevalent and may be an effective complement to BPRE. The elective perioperative pathway offers an opportunity to rethink the patient journey with the aim of maximising opportunities for effective shared decision making and improving preparation for surgery through prehabilitation and management of long-term conditions (comorbidity/multimorbidity management). Additional opportunities include improved management of transitions of care and effective medicines management to minimise polypharmacy. Pathway mapping, deconstruction and reconstruction enables such changes and is a method of service transformation that may have relevance for a spectrum of other elective/scheduled pathways.