Core Measure Set for Patient Safety in Perioperative Care: A Clinical Practice-Oriented Consensus Study

To develop a consensus-based EU-wide Core Measure Set (CMS), including patient-reported measures, for evaluating perioperative patient safety in routine adult care.

A four-phase approach was applied: 1) identification of candidate structure, process, and outcome measures through three literature reviews; 2) synthesis into an initial list via deduplication and merging; 3) consensus process using a two-round modified eDelphi technique, with subject-matter and lived-experienced experts rating the importance and feasibility of each measure (consensus: ≥75% rating 7-9, ≤15% rating 1-3), followed by an online Consensus Conference addressing measures highly valued by patients but lacking feasibility consensus; 4) refinement of the CMS for patient safety in perioperative care (CMS-PSPC).

Out of 9,717 records identified, 340 studies were included, yielding 1,305 measures. After refinement, 247 measures were consolidated; 84 reached consensus, and ten more were added via the Consensus Conference. The final CMS-PSPC comprised 76 measures: 22 outcome, 18 process, and 36 structure measures.

The CMS-PSPC provides a standardised, patient-centred framework for evaluating, monitoring and benchmarking perioperative patient safety in routine clinical care, supporting EU-wide quality improvement efforts.