‘Organisation of delivery of care in operating suite recovery rooms within 48 hours postoperatively and patient outcomes after adult non-cardiac surgery: a systematic review’

CONTEXT: Postoperative recovery rooms have existed since 1847, however, there is sparse literature investigating interventions undertaken in recovery, and their impact on patients after recovery room discharge. OBJECTIVE: This review aimed to investigate the organisation of care delivery in postoperative recovery rooms; and its effect on patient outcomes; including mortality, morbidity, unplanned intensive care unit (ICU) admission and length of hospital stay. DATA SOURCES: NCBI PubMed, EMBASE and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. STUDY SELECTION: Studies published since 1990, investigating health system initiatives undertaken in postoperative recovery rooms. One author screened titles and abstracts, with two authors completing full-text reviews to determine inclusion based on predetermined criteria. A total of 3288 unique studies were identified, with 14 selected for full-text reviews, and 8 included in the review. DATA EXTRACTION: EndNote V.8 (Clarivate Analytics) was used to manage references. One author extracted data from each study using a data extraction form adapted from the Cochrane Data Extraction Template, with all data checked by a second author. DATA SYNTHESIS: Narrative synthesis of data was the primary outcome measure, with all data of individual studies also presented in the summary results table. RESULTS: Four studies investigated the use of the postanaesthesia care unit (PACU) as a non-ICU pathway for postoperative patients. Two investigated the implementation of physiotherapy in PACU, one evaluated the use of a new nursing scoring tool for detecting patient deterioration, and one evaluated the implementation of a two-track clinical pathway in PACU. CONCLUSIONS: Managing selected postoperative patients in a PACU, instead of ICU, does not appear to be associated with worse patient outcomes, however, due to the high risk of bias within studies, the strength of evidence is only moderate. Four of eight studies also examined hospital length of stay; two found the intervention was associated with decreased length of stay and two found no association. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: This protocol is registered on the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) database, registration number CRD42018106093.