Improving postoperative mobilisation rates in patients undergoing elective major hepatopancreatobiliary surgery

Early mobilisation reduces postoperative complications such as pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis and hospital length of stay. Many authors have reported poor compliance with early mobilisation within Enhanced Recovery After Surgery initiatives.

The primary objective was to increase postoperative day (POD) 2 mobilisation rate from 23% to 75% in patients undergoing elective major hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) surgery within 6 months.

We report a multidisciplinary team clinical practice improvement project (CPIP) to improve postoperative mobilisation of patients undergoing elective major HPB surgery. We identified the common barriers to mobilisation and analysed using the fishbone or cause-and-effect diagram and Pareto chart. A series of Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles followed this. We tracked the rate of early mobilisation and mean distance walked. In the post hoc analysis, we examined the potential cost savings based on reduced hospital length of stay.

Mobilisation rate on POD 2 following elective major HPB surgery improved from 23% to 78.9%, and this sustained at 6 months after the CPIP. Wound pain was the most common reason for failure to ambulate on POD 2. Hospital length of stay reduced from a median of 8 days to 6 days with an estimated cost saving of S$2228 per hospital stay.

Multidisciplinary quality improvement intervention effort resulted in an improved POD 2 mobilisation rate for patients who underwent elective major HPB surgery. This observed outcome was sustained at 6 months after completion of the CPIP with potential cost savings.