Specialty: General ERAS®

In this masterclass, held in Portuguese, Cláudia Santos Silva from Encare and Dr Manuel Rosete from the Coimbra University Hospitals in Portugal show how ERAS® and the ERAS® Interactive Audit System (EIAS) close the gap between the perioperative care teams believe they deliver and the care they actually deliver. It is aimed at surgeons, anaesthesiologists, nurses, allied health professionals and hospital managers in Portugal, Brazil and the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world. You will learn why protocol compliance drives surgical outcomes, how structured audit keeps compliance from slipping, and how one tertiary hospital grew ERAS® from a single colorectal protocol to 11 protocols and a dedicated ERAS® clinic.

Cláudia opens with a question for every clinician: what percentage of the care protocol was actually followed for your last surgical patient, measured rather than assumed? She outlines the scale of the problem – more than 313 million operations a year and one in five surgical patients with a postoperative complication – and presents recent evidence that ERAS® also works in Latin American hospitals. She explains the three principles of ERAS® (multidisciplinary, data-driven and evidence-based), the relationship between the ERAS® Society and Encare, and the multicentre study in Annals of Surgery showing that patients with more than 70% compliance have significantly fewer complications. After a demonstration of the ERAS® Interactive Audit System (EIAS), now also available in Portuguese, Dr Manuel Rosete describes the Coimbra experience: changing the mindset of clinicians and patients, training every professional along the pathway, dedicated nursing time, a multidisciplinary ERAS® consultation with six specialties in one morning, automated order sets, early discharge criteria based on clinical judgement and CRP, and an automated telephone follow-up after discharge. In his words, the median postoperative length of stay fell by 2 to 3 days, and the hospital has since moved from separate ERAS® consultations to a single interdisciplinary ERAS® clinic. The session ends with questions from the audience on first steps, the biggest challenges, data collection with SClínico and dedicated nursing and dietitian time.

Recorded: 13 May 2026 (live webinar)
Duration: 85 minutes
Language: Portuguese (subtitles in Portuguese, English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish)

Speakers

• Cláudia Santos Silva
  Nurse, Encare – host and presenter; covers the problem of unmeasured compliance, the evidence behind ERAS®, the ERAS® Society and Encare, and the EIAS platform.
• Dr Manuel Rosete
  General Surgeon, ULS Coimbra (Coimbra University Hospitals), Portugal, and Director of the ERAS® Clinic – describes how Coimbra implemented and expanded ERAS®, and answers questions from the audience.

Chapters

• 00:00 Welcome and introduction
• 00:20 How much of the protocol is actually followed?
• 01:49 About the speaker
• 03:22 Agenda
• 04:34 The problem: variation in surgical care
• 07:39 The iceberg: what hospitals don't measure
• 08:34 ERAS® evidence from Latin America
• 11:28 What ERAS® is
• 12:27 Three principles: multidisciplinary, data-driven, evidence-based
• 14:00 The ERAS® Society and Encare
• 15:45 Measurable results of ERAS®
• 17:03 Return on investment
• 18:44 Why protocol compliance matters
• 20:23 Poll: the biggest challenge in surgical quality
• 21:36 Compliance and outcomes: the Annals of Surgery study
• 23:32 Introducing EIAS
• 24:06 EIAS video demonstration
• 28:34 EIAS in Portuguese and what sets it apart
• 33:29 ERAS® protocols and specialties
• 33:48 Poll: your institution's current approach
• 36:39 Introducing Dr Manuel Rosete
• 37:20 ERAS® at Coimbra: aims and benefits
• 39:21 The history of the Coimbra programme
• 40:22 Challenge 1: changing mindsets
• 46:32 Challenge 2: training healthcare professionals
• 48:23 Challenge 3: human resources and dedicated time
• 50:59 Challenge 4: the patient pathway and the ERAS® consultation
• 53:19 Admission, order sets and automated care plans
• 55:39 Minimally invasive surgery and benchmarking
• 56:49 Early discharge criteria and CRP
• 59:03 Results: length of stay in Coimbra
• 59:59 Remote clinical follow-up after discharge
• 1:03:00 Growth in surgical activity
• 1:03:30 Auditing outcomes and complications with EIAS
• 1:05:06 Benchmarking with other hospitals
• 1:05:52 From one protocol to 11
• 1:07:23 Growing pains: keeping teams motivated
• 1:09:12 From ERAS® consultations to an ERAS® clinic
• 1:10:52 Research, training centre and further expansion
• 1:13:01 Invitation to the ERAS® Hands-On course
• 1:14:26 Closing remarks
• 1:17:06 Q&A: first steps for hospitals without structured measurement
• 1:18:08 Q&A: the biggest challenge in Coimbra
• 1:19:59 Q&A: data collection and integration with SClínico
• 1:22:11 Q&A: dedicated nursing and dietitian time
• 1:24:40 Close

Related resources

• ERAS® Interactive Audit System (EIAS) – Encare's audit system for ERAS® compliance and outcomes
• ERAS® Implementation Program (EIP) – structured support for teams starting ERAS®
• ERAS® colorectal protocol – the protocol Coimbra started with
• ERAS® Qualification and the map of ERAS® Qualified Centers
• ERAS® Society – guidelines and the ERAS® programme
• Enhanced Recovery After Surgery: a true revolution at Coimbra University and Hospital Center – article on the Coimbra programme (Revista Portuguesa de Cirurgia)
• The Impact of the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Protocol on Colorectal Surgery in a Portuguese Tertiary Hospital – Acta Médica Portuguesa, 2022

Want to see how EIAS can support ERAS® implementation and audit in your hospital? Book a demo