Prevalence of relevant early complications during the first 24 h on a normal ward in patients following PACU care after medium and major surgery: a monocentric retrospective observational study.

Purpose: Even today, it remains a challenge for healthcare professionals to decide whether a clinically stable patient who is recovering from uncomplicated medium or major surgery would benefit from a postoperative intensive care unit (ICU) admission, or whether they would be at least as adequately cared for by a few hours of monitoring in the post-operative care unit (PACU).

Methods: In this monocentric retrospective observational study, all adult patients who (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Anästhesiologie und Intensivmedizin (DGAI) in Anästh Intensivmed (50):S486-S489, 2009) underwent medium or major surgery between 1 January 1 2014 and 31 December 2018 at the Heidelberg University Surgical Center, and (Vimlati et al. in Eur J Anaesthesiol September 26(9):715-721, 2009) were monitored for 1-12 h in the PACU, and then (De Pietri et al.