Background: Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathways have considerably improved postoperative outcomes and are in use for various types of surgery. The prospective audit system (EIAS) could be a powerful tool for large-scale outcome research but its database has not been validated yet.
Methods: Swiss ERAS centers were invited to contribute to the validation of the Swiss chapter for colorectal surgery. A monitoring team performed on-site visits by the use of a standardized checklist. Validation criteria were (I) coverage (No. of operated patients within ERAS protocol; target threshold for validation: ≥ 80%), (II) missing data (8 predefined variables; target ≤ 10%), and (III) accuracy (2 predefined variables, target ≥ 80%). These criteria were assessed by comparing EIAS entries with the medical charts of a random sample of patients per center (range 15-20).
Results: Out of 18 Swiss ERAS centers, 15 agreed to have onsite monitoring but 13 granted access to the final dataset. ERAS coverage was available in only 7 centers and varied between 76 and 100%. Overall missing data rate was 5.7% and concerned mainly the variables "urinary catheter removal" (16.4%) and "mobilization on day 1" (16%). Accuracy for the length of hospital stay and complications was overall 84.6%. Overall, 5 over 13 centers failed in the validation process for one or several criteria.
Conclusion: EIAS was validated in most Swiss ERAS centers. Potential patient selection and missing data remain sources of bias in non-validated centers. Therefore, simplified validation of other centers appears to be mandatory before large-scale use of the EIAS dataset.