OPUS
Optimizing Patients Undergoing Surgery

FAILURE TO RESCUE – A NEGLECTED PROBLEM OF PATIENT SAFETY
 

It is well known that surgical mortality varies between hospitals and that hospitals with large volume of surgery tend of have lower mortality rates. Intuitively, this leads to the hypothesis, that in hospitals with higher case load fewer complications occur. In fact, this is not the case. It has been shown, that in hospitals with low mortality rates less deaths occur after major complications, where-as the complication rates are similar. The aim of OPUS was to optimize perioperative management of surgical patients in order to identify patients at risk, avoid intra- and postoperative complications, and to detect complications early and to treat

these early, adequately and aggressively.

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TASK FORCE - Optimizing Patients Undergoing Surgery (OPUS)
 

The goal of the task force for “Optimizing Patients Undergoing Surgery” (OPUS) was to establish recommendations of best practice patterns for optimal management of patients undergoing surgery. In order to achieve this goal an interdisciplinary task force was convened. 

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The OPUS task force comprised members from all disciplines involved in the perioperative care of patients. Prof. Andreas Hoeft coordinated these activities as they are involved in the perioperative management of nearly all surgical patients. The task force comprised members from all major surgical disciplines, in particular general surgery, orthopaedic and trauma surgery, gynaecology and obstetrics, urology, ENT, neuro- and cardiac surgery and also smaller disciplines such as oralfascial surgery, eye surgery and plastic surgery. The umbrella for all these disciplines was the European Patient Safety Foundation.

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