Promoting Early Mobility in Patients After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: An Evidence-Based Protocol

Aortic stenosis is prevalent among older adults and is commonly treated with transcatheter aortic valve replacement. Both high- and low-risk patients benefit from early mobility and discharge after this procedure; however, hospital protocols to improve patient mobility and shorten hospital stays have not been systematically implemented.

To develop and evaluate a post-transcatheter aortic valve replacement protocol to standardize care and efficiently advance patients from the operating room to discharge.

A prospective pre-post design was used to evaluate the effect of the new standardized protocol on length of stay, timing of mobility, time spent in intensive care, and quality of life in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement between April 2019 and March 2020.

Interventions included team-based education and integration of an evidence-based order set into the electronic health record. Education was provided to both patients and staff.

At 6 months after implementation of the intervention, statistically significant improvements were observed in mean overall (5.26 vs 2.45 days; P = .001) and postprocedure (3.05 vs 2.16 days; P = .004) length of stay. No significant difference was found in performance on the 5-meter walk test. Quality of life improved in both groups from baseline to 30-day follow-up (P = .01).

Implementation of the post-transcatheter aortic valve replacement protocol was associated with significant improvement in overall and postprocedure length of stay and improved quality of life. Additional work is needed to examine strategies to ensure safe next-day discharge.