Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi in Florence has become the first hospital in Italy and among the first in Europe to achieve ERAS® Qualification in Cardiac Surgery, marking a breakthrough for enhanced recovery in a complex surgical specialty..
The ERAS® Qualification follows more than a year of structured implementation through the ERAS® Implementation Program (EIP) where Professor Pierluigi Stefàno, Dr Sergio Bevilacqua and Professor Gabriele Baldini all together collaborated to achieve:
- A major increase in ERAS® protocol compliance
- A significant reduction in ICU stays and serious complications
- Integration of prehabilitation into the cardiac pathway
Continuous data collection is now underway as the hospital performs over 1,200 cardiac surgeries each year, further strengthening its capacity for quality improvement and long-term evaluation through the ERAS® Interactive Audit System (EIAS).
This milestone was made possible with support from Encare’s partner Medtronic and the expert guidance of ERAS® Trainers from Le Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV) in Switzerland.
If your hospital would like to implement the ERAS® Cardiac Protocol, learn more here: Cardiac protocol
