Operating Room Extubation in Major Aortic Surgery: Policy Change Leading to Improved Recovery

Enhanced recovery strategies in cardiac surgery emphasize early liberation from mechanical ventilation. Operating room (OR) extubation is one approach to improve outcomes and reduce resource utilization. This study evaluated a quality-improvement intervention (QII) designed to establish OR extubation as the default recovery pathway in open aortic surgery.

Retrospective, single-center cohort study with QII analyzed by pre- and post-implementation periods.

Single academic medical center.

Adults undergoing open aortic surgery between 2014 and 2025 (N = 658), analyzed by extubation pathway (OR v intensive care unit [ICU]) and intervention period.

A multidisciplinary QII was implemented in 2020 using plan-do-study-act cycles, impact-confidence-ease prioritization, and the Kotter change-management framework to systematically adopt OR extubation as institutional standard practice.

The primary endpoint was prolonged ICU length of stay (LOS), defined as ICU LOS exceeding the 75th percentile (>124 hours); a sensitivity analysis used ICU LOS >72 hours. Safety outcomes included major complications and mortality. Among 658 patients, 191 (29%) were extubated in the OR and 467 (71%) were extubated in the ICU. Prolonged ICU stay (>124 hours) occurred in 8% of OR-extubated patients versus 35% of ICU-extubated patients (p < 0.001). According to the >72-hour definition, prolonged ICU stay occurred in 35% of OR-extubated patients versus 71% of ICU-extubated patients (p < 0.001). Following QII implementation, OR extubation rates increased from <5% to >50% of cases, while rates of prolonged ICU stay declined from 33% to 19% (p < 0.001) and median ICU LOS decreased from 96 to 65 hours (p < 0.001). There were no differences in mortality or major complications.

OR extubation was associated with reduced prolonged ICU utilization after open aortic surgery without compromising safety. When implemented through a structured quality-improvement framework, OR extubation achieves durable system-level adoption and offers a scalable strategy to improve recovery and ICU capacity.