Enhanced recovery after colon surgery in a community hospital system.

Background: Enhanced recovery after colon surgery has not been widely adopted in the United States and Europe, despite evidence that postoperative complications and hospital length of stay are decreased.

Objective: We sought to evaluate the introduction of a comprehensive care process for enhanced recovery after colon surgery in 8 community hospitals.

Design: A system-wide, surgeon-directed, multidisciplinary committee developed a comprehensive enhanced-care quality-improvement program.

Morphine equivalent normalized score (MENS) process for comparison of narcotic usage across colon surgery patients.

Current literature demonstrates how the use of narcotics prolongs a post-operative ileus [1]. An evidenced based care process model for a patient undergoing colon surgery requires the measurement of total narcotic usage. This includes all narcotics given during the patients stay.