Surgeon-led improvement in compliance with use of sequential compression devices in a neurosurgery patient population.

INTRODUCTION: Sequential compression devices (SCDs) are the mainstay of mechanical prophylaxis for venous thromboembolism in perioperative neurosurgical patients and are especially crucial when chemical prophylaxis is contraindicated. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to characterise and improve SCD compliance in neurosurgery stepdown patients. METHODS: SCD compliance in a neurosurgical stepdown unit was tracked across 13 months (August 2022-August 2023). When not properly functioning, the missing element was documented. Compliance was calculated daily in all patients with SCD orders, and then averaged monthly. Most common barriers to compliance were identified. With nursing, we implemented a best practice alert to facilitate nursing education at month 3 and tracked compliance over 9 months, with two breaks in surveillance. At month 12, we implemented a patient-engagement measure through creating and distributing a patient-directed infographic and tracked compliance over 2 months. RESULTS: Compliance averaged 19.7% (n=95) during August and 38.4% (n=131) in September. After implementing the best practice alert and supply chain upgrades, compliance improved to 48.8% (n=150) in October, 41.2% (n=104) in March and 45.9% (n=76) in April. The infographic improved compliance to 51.4% (n=70) in July and 55.1% (n=34) in August. Compliance was significantly increased from baseline in August to October (z=4.5838, p<0.00001), sustained through March (z=3.2774, p=0.00104) and further improved by August (z=3.9025, p=0.0001). CONCLUSION: Beyond an initial Hawthorne effect, implementation of the best practice nursing alert facilitated sustained improvement in SCD compliance despite breaks in surveillance. SCD compliance nonetheless remained below 50% until implementation of patient-engagement measures which were dependent on physician involvement.

A nationwide neurosurgical inter-disciplinary service for cancer-related refractory pain.

PURPOSE: Neurosurgical ablative procedures, such as cordotomy and cingulotomy, are often considered irreversible and destructive but can provide an effective and individualized solution for cancer-related refractory pain, when all other approaches have been unsuccessful. This paper provides an in-depth exploration of a novel approach to managing refractory cancer pain. It involves an interdisciplinary team led by a neurosurgeon at a renowned national referral center. METHODS: a retrospective analysis of the medical records of all sequential patients who underwent their initial evaluation at our interdisciplinary refractory cancer pain clinic from February 2017 to January 2023. RESULTS: A total of 207 patients were examined in the clinic for a first visit during the study period. All patients were referred to the clinic due to severe pain that was deemed refractory by the referring physician. The mean age was 61 ± 12.3 years, with no significant sex difference (P = 0.58). The mean ECOG Performance Status score was 2.35. Conservative measures had not yet been exhausted in 28 patients (14%) and 9 patients were well controlled (4%). Neurosurgical ablative procedures were recommended for 151 (73%) of the patients. Sixty-six patients (32%) eventually underwent the procedure. 91 patients (44%) received a negative recommendation for surgery. Thirty-five patients (17%) were referred for further invasive procedures at the pain clinic. CONCLUSION: An Interdisciplinary cooperation between palliative care specialists, pain specialists, and neurosurgeons ensures optimal patient selection and provides safe and effective neurosurgery for the treatment of refractory cancer-related pain.

An ontology-based tool for modeling and documenting events in neurosurgery.

BACKGROUND: Intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IOM) plays a pivotal role in enhancing patient safety during neurosurgical procedures. This vital technique involves the continuous measurement of evoked potentials to provide early warnings and ensure the preservation of critical neural structures. One of the primary challenges has been the effective documentation of IOM events with semantically enriched characterizations. This study aimed to address this challenge by developing an ontology-based tool. METHODS: We structured the development of the IOM Documentation Ontology (IOMDO) and the associated tool into three distinct phases. The initial phase focused on the ontology's creation, drawing from the OBO (Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology) principles. The subsequent phase involved agile software development, a flexible approach to encapsulate the diverse requirements and swiftly produce a prototype. The last phase entailed practical evaluation within real-world documentation settings. This crucial stage enabled us to gather firsthand insights, assessing the tool's functionality and efficacy. The observations made during this phase formed the basis for essential adjustments to ensure the tool's productive utilization. RESULTS: The core entities of the ontology revolve around central aspects of IOM, including measurements characterized by timestamp, type, values, and location. Concepts and terms of several ontologies were integrated into IOMDO, e.g., the Foundation Model of Anatomy (FMA), the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) and the ontology for surgical process models (OntoSPM) related to general surgical terms. The software tool developed for extending the ontology and the associated knowledge base was built with JavaFX for the user-friendly frontend and Apache Jena for the robust backend. The tool's evaluation involved test users who unanimously found the interface accessible and usable, even for those without extensive technical expertise. CONCLUSIONS: Through the establishment of a structured and standardized framework for characterizing IOM events, our ontology-based tool holds the potential to enhance the quality of documentation, benefiting patient care by improving the foundation for informed decision-making. Furthermore, researchers can leverage the semantically enriched data to identify trends, patterns, and areas for surgical practice enhancement. To optimize documentation through ontology-based approaches, it's crucial to address potential modeling issues that are associated with the Ontology of Adverse Events.

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Spine Pathways and the Role of Perioperative Checklists.

Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) proposes a multimodal, evidence-based approach to perioperative care. ERAS pathways have been shown to help reduce complications, hospital length of stay (LOS), 30-day readmission rates, pain scores, and ultimately surgical costs, while improving patient satisfaction scores and outcomes in multiple surgical subspecialties [1-6]. Numerous specialties have implemented ERAS programs across the globe, providing a foundation for spine surgeons to begin the process themselves. Over the last few years, a significant number of papers have been addressing ERAS pathways for spinal surgery [7-19]. The majority have addressed the lumbar spine [9, 20-26]. The number of cervical ERAS pathways has been limited [27-29]. Many spine programs have begun the implementation of ERAS pathways, incorporating principles and interventions to various spine surgical procedures. Although differences in implementation across programs exist, there are a few common elements that promote a successful enhanced recovery approach [11, 16, 23, 25, 30-33]. All spinal ERAS pathways have three major elements, which are preoperative, perioperative, and postoperative phases. Within these phases some common elements include preoperative and intraoperative surgical checklists. Intraoperative checklist in addition to the "surgical time out" has been integrated into the workflow of most hospitals doing surgeries and have become a standard of care. The surgical checklist is designed to help reduce surgical errors and prevent wrong site/patient surgeries. Several surgical checklists have been developed throughout the years. Despite these safety protocols wrong site/level and other surgical errors continue to occur. Many cases of wrong level spine surgery (WLSS) still occur even when intraoperative imaging is performed [34, 35]. One survey reported that about 50% of spine surgeons have performed at least one WLSS during their career [36, 37]. Another survey reported that 36% of spine surgeons had performed at least one WLSS that was not recognized intraoperatively [38]. On a similar account, about 30% of spine surgery fellows have experienced wrong-site surgery [39]. From raw incidence rates, WLSS may seem rare, but these surveys show that the experience of WLSS is rather common among spine surgeons. WLSS is not yet a "never event." This may be due to poor quality of the intraoperative images, hindering subsequent level identification [34, 35, 38, 40]. Errors in interpretation of the imaging may also occur, including inconsistency in numbering vertebrae, inconsistency in landmark usage for level counting, and problems with numbering vertebrae due to lumbosacral transitional vertebrae (LSTV) and other anatomical variants [34, 38, 41-43]. This chapter will describe a framework for the development and implementation of ERAS pathway for patients undergoing spine surgery. In addition, we will propose preoperative imaging guidelines and a comprehensive spine surgical checklist to incorporate into the perioperative phase to help reduce further surgical errors and WLSS.

Green Hospital as a new Standard in Japan: How far can Neurosurgery go in Japan?

BACKGROUND: Climate change is a significant challenge that the medical community must address. Hospitals are large facilities with high water and energy consumption, as well as high levels of waste generation, which makes it important to pursue green hospital initiatives. Neurosurgery requires substantial energy for surgeries and tests. METHODS: Based on the keywords "Climate change," "green hospital," "neurosurgery," "energy consumption," "environmental impact" listed in this paper, we extracted representative manuscripts, and the practices employed in the authors' hospital were assessed. RESULTS: The "Guidelines for Environmental Consideration in Hospitals" and "Guidelines for the Sustainability of Hospital Environments" have been developed; however, they are not implemented in most hospitals in Japan. Inhalational anesthetics were found to contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Educating patients and staff and employing the "8 Rs" (rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, research, renovation, and revolution) showed promise in achieving green hospital standards. CONCLUSIONS: The advent of 'green hospitals' in Japan is imminent. The active participation of neurosurgeons can play a crucial role in diminishing the environmental footprint of health care while simultaneously enhancing medical standards. Given the pressing challenges posed by climate change, there is a critical need for an overhaul of medical practices. It is imperative for neurosurgeons to pioneer the adoption of new, sustainable medical methodologies.

Evaluation of the safety, accuracy, and helpfulness of the GPT-4.0 Large Language Model in neurosurgery.

BACKGROUND: Although prior work demonstrated the surprising accuracy of Large Language Models (LLMs) on neurosurgery board-style questions, their use in day-to-day clinical situations warrants further investigation. This study assessed GPT-4.0's responses to common clinical questions across various subspecialties of neurosurgery. METHODS: A panel of attending neurosurgeons formulated 35 general neurosurgical questions spanning neuro-oncology, spine, vascular, functional, pediatrics, and trauma. All questions were input into GPT-4.0 with a prespecified, standard prompt. Responses were evaluated by two attending neurosurgeons, each on a standardized scale for accuracy, safety, and helpfulness. Citations were indexed and evaluated against identifiable database references. RESULTS: GPT-4.0 responses were consistent with current medical guidelines and accounted for recent advances in the field 92.8 % and 78.6 % of the time respectively. Neurosurgeons reported GPT-4.0 responses providing unrealistic information or potentially risky information 14.3 % and 7.1 % of the time respectively. Assessed on 5-point scales, responses suggested that GPT-4.0 was clinically useful (4.0 ± 0.6), relevant (4.7 ± 0.3), and coherent (4.9 ± 0.2). The depth of clinical responses varied (3.7 ± 0.6), and "red flag" symptoms were missed 7.1 % of the time. Moreover, GPT-4.0 cited 86 references (2.46 citations per answer), of which only 50 % were deemed valid, and 77.1 % of responses contained at least one inappropriate citation. CONCLUSION: Current general LLM technology can offer generally accurate, safe, and helpful neurosurgical information, but may not fully evaluate medical literature or recent field advances. Citation generation and usage remains unreliable. As this technology becomes more ubiquitous, clinicians will need to exercise caution when dealing with it in practice.

Pharmacological and neurosurgical management of cerebral palsy and dystonia: Clinical practice guideline update.

Dystonia, typically characterized by slow repetitive involuntary movements, stiff abnormal postures, and hypertonia, is common among individuals with cerebral palsy (CP). Dystonia can interfere with activities and have considerable impact on motor function, pain/comfort, and ease of caregiving. Although pharmacological and neurosurgical approaches are used clinically in individuals with CP and dystonia that is causing interference, evidence to support these options is limited. This clinical practice guideline update comprises 10 evidence-based recommendations on the use of pharmacological and neurosurgical interventions for individuals with CP and dystonia causing interference, developed by an international expert panel following the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) approach. The recommendations are intended to help inform clinicians in their use of these management options for individuals with CP and dystonia, and to guide a shared decision-making process in selecting a management approach that is aligned with the individual's and the family's values and preferences.

Defining benchmark outcomes for mesial temporal lobe epilepsy surgery: A global multicenter analysis of 1119 cases.

OBJECTIVE: Benchmarking has been proposed to reflect surgical quality and represents the highest standard reference values for desirable results. We sought to determine benchmark outcomes in patients after surgery for drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). METHODS: This retrospective multicenter study included patients who underwent MTLE surgery at 19 expert centers on five continents. Benchmarks were defined for 15 endpoints covering surgery and epilepsy outcome at discharge, 1 year after surgery, and the last available follow-up. Patients were risk-stratified by applying outcome-relevant comorbidities, and benchmarks were calculated for low-risk ("benchmark") cases. Respective measures were derived from the median value at each center, and the 75th percentile was considered the benchmark cutoff. RESULTS: A total of 1119 patients with a mean age (range) of 36.7 (1-74) years and a male-to-female ratio of 1:1.1 were included. Most patients (59.2%) underwent anterior temporal lobe resection with amygdalohippocampectomy. The overall rate of complications or neurological deficits was 14.4%, with no in-hospital death. After risk stratification, 377 (33.7%) benchmark cases of 1119 patients were identified, representing 13.6%-72.9% of cases per center and leaving 742 patients in the high-risk cohort. Benchmark cutoffs for any complication, clinically apparent stroke, and reoperation rate at discharge were ≤24.6%, ≤.5%, and ≤3.9%, respectively. A favorable seizure outcome (defined as International League Against Epilepsy class I and II) was reached in 83.6% at 1 year and 79.0% at the last follow-up in benchmark cases, leading to benchmark cutoffs of ≥75.2% (1-year follow-up) and ≥69.5% (mean follow-up of 39.0 months). SIGNIFICANCE: This study presents internationally applicable benchmark outcomes for the efficacy and safety of MTLE surgery. It may allow for comparison between centers, patient registries, and novel surgical and interventional techniques.

Non-navigated 2D intraoperative ultrasound: An unsophisticated surgical tool to achieve high standards of care in glioma surgery.

PURPOSE: In an era characterized by rapid progression in neurosurgical technologies, traditional tools such as the non-navigated two-dimensional intraoperative ultrasound (nn-2D-IOUS) risk being overshadowed. Against this backdrop, this study endeavors to provide a comprehensive assessment of the clinical efficacy and surgical relevance of nn-2D-IOUS, specifically in the context of glioma resections. METHODS: This retrospective study undertaken at a single center evaluated 99 consecutive, non-selected patients diagnosed with both high-grade and low-grade gliomas. The primary objective was to assess the proficiency of nn-2D-IOUS in generating satisfactory image quality, identifying residual tumor tissue, and its influence on the extent of resection. To validate these results, early postoperative MRI data served as the reference standard. RESULTS: The nn-2D-IOUS exhibited a high level of effectiveness, successfully generating good quality images in 79% of the patients evaluated. With a sensitivity rate of 68% and a perfect specificity of 100%, nn-2D-IOUS unequivocally demonstrated its utility in intraoperative residual tumor detection. Notably, when total tumor removal was the surgical objective, a resection exceeding 95% of the initial tumor volume was achieved in 86% of patients. Additionally, patients in whom residual tumor was not detected by nn-2D-IOUS, the mean volume of undetected tumor tissue was remarkably minimal, averaging at 0.29 cm3. CONCLUSION: Our study supports nn-2D-IOUS's invaluable role in glioma surgery. The results highlight the utility of traditional technologies for enhanced surgical outcomes, even when compared to advanced alternatives. This is particularly relevant for resource-constrained settings and emphasizes optimizing existing tools for efficient patient care. NCT05873946 - 24/05/2023 - Retrospectively registered.

Reappraisal of the types of hypoglossal canal: endocranial approach.

This study aims to classify the endocranial variations inside the Hypoglossal Canal (HC) and evaluate the elements of the HC region in terms of sizes, diameters, and distances to the nearby surgical landmarks. The present study was done on 18 adult human fixed cadaver heads bilaterally. The internal opening of HC was examined for the presence of dural or osseos septations in the canal and was classified into five types (Type 1-5). The dimensions of hypoglossal nerve (CN XII) and the distance of intracranial openings of HC from the jugular foramen and jugular tubercle were measured. The prevalence of endocranial HC types were determined on both sides as follows: type 1 (23.53% left, 6.25% right), type 2 (37.5% right, 5.88% left), type 3 (52.94% left, 25% right), type 4 (18.75% right, 17.65% left), type 5 (12.5% right). Understanding the endocranial HC types is crucial for neurosurgeons in the differential diagnosis of various intracranial pathologies for the posterior cranial fossa approach. Knowing the anatomical relationships between the adjacent structures and symmetrical organization of the HC according to the types is crucial in determining surgical strategies and preserving adjacent structures.

Application of Intraoperative Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound in the Resection of Brain Tumors.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the value of routine intraoperative ultrasound (IU) and intraoperative contrast-enhanced ultrasound (ICEUS) in the surgical treatment of brain tumors, and to explore the utilization of ICEUS for the removal of the remnants surrounding the resection cavity. METHODS: In total, 51 patients who underwent operations from 2012 to 2018 due to different tumors in the brain were included in this study. The clinical data were evaluated retrospectively. IU was performed in all patients, among which 28 patients underwent ICEUS. The effects of IU and ICEUS on tumor resection and recurrence were evaluated. Semiquantitative analysis was performed to compare ICEUS parameters of the brain tumor with those of the surrounding tissue. RESULTS: In total, 36 male and 15 female patients were included in this study. The average age was 43 years (range: 14-68 years). The follow-up period was from 7 to 74 months (mean follow-up 32 months). IU was used in all patients, and no lesion was missed. Among them, 28 patients underwent ICEUS. The rate of total removal of the ICEUS group (23/28, 82%) was significantly higher than that of the IU group (11/23, 48%) (P<0.05). The recurrence rate of ICEUS and IU was 18% (5/23), and 22% (5/28), respectively, and the difference did not reach statistical significance (P>0.05). The semiquantitative analysis showed that the intensity and the transit time of microbubbles reaching the lesions were significantly different from the intensity and the transit time of microbubbles reaching the surrounding tissue (P<0.05) and reflected indirectly the volume and the speed of blood perfusion in the lesions was higher than those in the surrounding tissue. CONCLUSION: ICEUS is a useful tool in localizing and outlining brain lesions, especially for the resection of the hypervascular lesions in the brain. ICEUS could be more beneficial for identifying the remnants and improving the rate of total removal of these lesions than routine intraoperative ultrasound.

Applicability of contemporary quality indicators in vestibular surgery-do they accurately measure tumor inherent postoperative complications of vestibular schwannomas?

BACKGROUND: Due to rising costs in health care delivery, reimbursement decisions have progressively been based on quality measures. Such quality indicators have been developed for neurosurgical procedures, collectively. We aimed to evaluate their applicability in patients that underwent surgery for vestibular schwannoma and to identify potential new disease-specific quality indicators. METHODS: One hundred and three patients operated due to vestibular schwannoma were subject to analysis. The primary outcomes of interest were 30-day and 90-day reoperation, readmission, mortality, nosocomial infection and surgical site infection (SSI) rates, postoperative cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) leak, facial, and hearing function. The secondary aim was the identification of prognostic factors for the mentioned primary outcomes. RESULTS: Thirty-day (90-days) outcomes in terms of reoperation were 10.7% (14.6%), readmission 9.7% (13.6%), mortality 1% (1%), nosocomial infection 5.8%, and SSI 1% (1%). A 30- versus 90-day outcome in terms of CSF leak were 6.8% vs. 10.7%, new facial nerve palsy 16.5% vs. 6.1%. Hearing impairment from serviceable to non-serviceable hearing was 6.8% at both 30- and 90-day outcome. The degree of tumor extension has a significant impact on reoperation (p < 0.001), infection (p = 0.015), postoperative hemorrhage (p < 0.001), and postoperative hearing loss (p = 0.026). CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrate the importance of entity-specific quality measurements being applied even after 30 days. We identified the occurrence of a CSF leak within 90 days postoperatively, new persistent facial nerve palsy still present 90 days postoperatively, and persisting postoperative hearing impairment to non-serviceable hearing as potential new quality measurement variables for patients undergoing surgery for vestibular schwannoma.

Factors impacting surgical decision making between prenatal and postnatal repair for myelomeningocele.

OBJECTIVES: To determine factors influencing patients to choose prenatal or postnatal repair of their child's myelomeningocele (MMC) when both treatment options are offered. METHODS: We distributed a retrospective survey via email and social media to parents of children with MMC who were offered both prenatal and postnatal surgery as intervention options. RESULTS: A total of 127 surveys met all inclusion criteria. The majority of responders considered partner's opinion (85%), maternal risks of prenatal surgery (71%), and risk for preterm labor (76%) as influencers. Financially, the costs of childcare (39.4% postnatal, 13.8% prenatal, p = 0.002), relocation (57.6% postnatal, 36.2% prenatal, p = 0.019), and travel (51.5% postnatal, 33% prenatal, p = 0.033) were more influential for the postnatal group while insurance coverage (36.4% postnatal, 68.1% prenatal, p = 0.003) was more influential to the prenatal group. Of the medical factors, the consideration of maternal risk for transfusion was different between surgical groups (39.4% postnatal, 18.1% prenatal, p = 0.015). The open responses suggest that both surgical groups found the quality of life for the baby to be significant to their decision-making. CONCLUSIONS: These findings should guide providers to tailor counseling to patient's needs. Comprehensive counseling should include information on financial resources, referral to financial counselors, and psychosocial support services.

[Endoscopic endonasal surgery during COVID-19 pandemic: Management guideline]. / Cirugía endoscópica endonasal durante la pandemia COVID-19: protocolo de actuación.

Current SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic is challenging medical and surgical activities. Specifically, within neurosurgery, endoscopic endonasal approaches pose a high risk of contagion for healthcare personnel involved in it. Initially, the recommendation was to avoid such surgeries. However, the pandemic has dragged on and new solutions must be proposed to continue carrying out these approaches safely. Given the lack of established protocols, we propose the following one, which concisely establishes the measures to be taken in both urgent and scheduled surgery. In addition, a new protection-aspiration device (Maskpirator) is described.

Acute cerebral venous outflow obstruction during convexity meningioma resection.

BACKGROUND: Cerebral venous outflow obstruction involves idiopathic intracranial hypertension, and the most common related condition is dural venous sinus stenosis or, in other words, an obstruction of the dural venous sinuses. In these cases, the pathological process is often chronic, displays only mild symptoms, and rarely requires urgent surgical intervention. In this study, we present a unique case involving an acute cerebral venous outflow obstruction that occurred during meningioma resection that ultimately had catastrophic consequences. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The patient's preoperative imaging only revealed an unremarkable frontal convexity meningioma with an average diameter exceeding 8 cm. She was admitted for a scheduled right frontoparietal craniotomy for lesion resection. RESULTS: The patient's unique congenital dural venous sinus structure along with a non-surgical epidural hematoma both contributed to a catastrophic outcome, causing a progressive hemispheric encephalocele, significant blood loss, and wound closure difficulties. CONCLUSION: Neurosurgeons should place an additional focus on cerebral venous outflow patency during tumor resection, even if the tumor does not involve the transverse or sigmoid sinuses. It is well known that the tacking sutures play an essential role in preventing an epidural hematoma, but the procedure to mitigate hematomas occurring outside the surgical field of view is not fully recognized by neurosurgeons. If dural tacking sutures are placed after complete tumor resection, the prophylactic effect for preventing EDH in the non-surgical areas may not be guaranteed. Therefore, we strongly advocate for the tacking sutures to be accurately placed before dural incisions are made.

Analysis of neurosurgical procedures with unplanned reoperation for quality improvement: A 5-year single hospital study.

ABSTRACT: The unplanned return to the operating room rate is a quality metric for assessing hospital performance. This study aimed to evaluate the cause, incidence, and time interval of unplanned returns in index neurosurgical procedures within 30 days of the initial surgery as an internal audit. We retrospectively analyzed neurosurgical procedures between January 2015, and December 2019, in a single regional hospital. The definition of an unplanned return to the operating room was a patient who underwent two operations within 30 days when the second procedure was not planned, staged, or related to the natural course of the disease.A total of 4365 patients were identified in our analysis, of which 93 (2%) had an unplanned return to the operating room within 30 days of their initial surgery during admission. The most common reason for an unplanned return to the operating room for a cranial procedure was hemorrhage, followed by hydrocephalus and subdural effusion, which accounted for 49.5%(46/93), 12%(11/93), and 5.4%(5/93) of cases, respectively. In spinal procedures, the most common cause of return was a residual disc, followed by surgical site infection, which accounted for 5.4%(5/93) and 4.3%(4/93) of cases, respectively. The overall median time interval for unplanned returns to the operating room was 3 days (interquartile range, 1-9).Lowering the rate of postoperative hemorrhage in cranial surgery and postoperative residual disc in spine surgery was crucial as an internal audit in a 5-year single institute follow-up. However, the unplanned reoperation rate is less helpful in benchmarking because of the heterogeneity of patients between hospitals.

Standardizing postoperative care for pediatric intradural Chiari decompressions to decrease length of stay.

OBJECTIVE: Amid national and local budget crises, cutting costs while maintaining quality care is a top priority. Chiari malformation is a relatively common pediatric neurosurgical pathology, and postoperative care varies widely. The postoperative course can be complicated by pain and nausea, which can extend the hospital stay. In this study, the authors aimed to examine whether instituting a standardized postoperative care protocol would decrease overall patient hospital length of stay (LOS) as well as cost to families and the hospital system. METHODS: A retrospective study of pediatric patients who underwent an intradural Chiari decompression with expansile duraplasty at a single institution from January 2016 to September 2019 was performed. A standardized postoperative care protocol was instituted on May 17, 2018. Pre- and postprotocol groups were primarily analyzed for demographics, LOS, and the estimated financial expense of the hospital stay. Secondary analysis included readmissions, opioid consumption, and follow-up. RESULTS: The analysis included 132 pediatric patients who underwent an intradural Chiari decompression with expansile duraplasty. The preprotocol group included 97 patients and the postprotocol group included 35 patients. Patient age ranged from 0.5 to 26 years (mean 9.5 years). The mean LOS preprotocol was 55.48 hours (range 25.90-127.77 hours), and the mean postprotocol LOS was 46.39 hours (range 27.58-77.38 hours). The comparison between means showed a statistically significant decrease following protocol initiation (95% CI 1.87-16.31 hours, p = 0.014). In the preprotocol group, 21 of 97 patients (22%) were discharged the first day after surgery compared with 14 of 35 patients (40%) in the postprotocol group (p = 0.045). The estimated cost of one night on the pediatric neurosurgical intermediate ward was approximately $4500, which gives overall cost estimates for 100 theoretical cases of $927,800 for the preprotocol group and $732,900 for the postprotocol group. CONCLUSIONS: By instituting a Chiari protocol, postoperative LOS was significantly decreased, which resulted in decreased healthcare costs while maintaining high-quality and safe care.

First American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Report from a Low-Middle-Income Country: A 1-Year Outcome Analysis of Neurosurgical Cases.

BACKGROUND: Low-middle-income countries (LMICs) share a substantial proportion of global surgical complications. This is compounded by the seemingly deficient documentation of postsurgical complications and the lack of a national average for comparison. In this context, the implementation of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) that compares hospital performance based on postsurgical complication data provided by a wide array of centers, could be a major initiative in a resource-challenged setting. Implementation of the NSQIP has provenly mitigated postoperative morbidity and mortality across many centers all over the world. To our knowledge, this report is the first from an LMIC to report its postoperative neurosurgical complications in comparison with international benchmarks. METHODS: Our hospital joined the NSQIP in 2019. Through a standardized ACS protocol, ACS-trained surgical clinical reviewers (SCRs) reviewed and extracted data from randomly assigned neurosurgical patients' medical records from preoperative to postoperative (30-day) data using validated, standardized data definitions. SCRs entered deidentified data in an online Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act web-based secure platform. The validated data were then consigned to the ACS NSQIP head office in the United States where the data were analyzed and compared with similar data from other centers registered with the NSQIP. In this way, our hospital was rated for each of the variables related to postsurgical complications after both spinal and cranial procedures, and the results were sent back to us in the form of text, tables, and graphs. RESULTS: Our initial report suggested a relatively higher odds ratio for sepsis and readmissions after spinal procedures at our hospital, and a similarly higher odds ratio for morbidity, sepsis, urinary tract infection, and surgical site infection for cranial procedures. For these variables, our hospital fell in the needs improvement category of the NSQIP. For the rest of the variables studied for both spinal and cranial procedures, the hospital fell in the as expected category of the NSQIP. CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of the NSQIP is an important first step in creating a culture of transparency, safety, and quality. This is the first report of NSQIP implementation in an LMIC, and we have shown comparable results to developed countries.