History

 The mission of the ERAS® Society is to develop perioperative care and to improve recovery through research, education, audit and implementation of evidence-based practice.

The mission of the Society is to develop peri-operative care and to improve recovery through research, education, audit and implementation of evidence-based practice. Below is short description of how the ERAS®Society was developed and some highlights from its history.

Ken Fearon and Olle Ljungqvist met in London at a nutrition symposia and decided to start a collaborative group on peri-operative care.

2001-2004

The ERAS® Society has its roots in what was called the ERAS® Study Group.  Comprised of leading surgical groups, the ERAS® Study Group was assembled by Professor Ken Fearon, Univ Edinburgh, UK and Professor Olle Ljungqvist, Karolinska Insitutet, Sweden in 2001 to further develop ideas put forth in the 1990’s by Professor Henrik Kehlet, Univ Copenhagen. Denmark concerning the concept of multimodal surgical care. In addition to the above, Profs Arthur Revhaug, Univ Tromsö, Norway Profs Martin von Meyenfeldt and Cornlius deJong, Univ Maastricht, The Netherlands was the original members of the ERAS® Study Group. The ERAS® Study Group soon discovered that there were a variety of traditions in use in different units.  There was also was a great discrepancy between the actual practices and what was already known to be best practice, based on the literature.  This prompted the group to examine the process of change from tradition to best-practice.

2003

The 1st ERAS® Symposia was held in Stockholm at Ersta hospital, Stockholm. In the foreground of the picture are Dr Mattias Soop, Sweden one of the main organizers and Prof Cornelius deJong, the Netherlands.

2005

The ERAS® Study Group developed and published an evidence-based consensus protocol for patients undergoing colonic surgery (Fearon et al, Clin Nutr 2005).

2007

The group published data showing that just adding a protocol was not sufficient to change practice to ERAS®. (Maessen et al, Br J Surg, 2007)

2009

The ERAS® Study Group updated the evidence base to include rectal surgery (Lassen et al. Arch Surg, 2009). In the picture are Ken Fearon (UK), Kristoffer Lassen (N), Olle Ljungqvist (SE), Jonas Nygren (SE), Arthur Revhaug (N), and Maarten von meyend feldt (NL). Missing is the photographer Cornelius de Jong (NL) at the meeting when the startup of the ERAS® Society was decided in Amsterdam 2010.

2010

The ERAS® Society was officially registered as a non for profit medical society based in Stockholm, Sweden. The founding fathers of the ERAS® Society are Ken Fearon (UK), Olle Ljungqvist, Arthur Revhaug, Maartin von Meyenfeldt, and Cornelius deJong. The 1st ERAS® Implementation program was run in Sweden from Örebro University Hospital.

2011

The 2nd ERAS® Implementation program in Sweden was started. The 1st National symposium supported by the ERAS® Society, held in San Raffaele hospital in Milano Italy June 17, 2011. The same year the 1st International ERAS® Implementation symposia was held in Milano (see picture above).

2012

The 2nd National symposia supported by the ERAS® Society were held in Lausanne, Switzerland at CHUV. At this symposia Swiss hospital teams were invited to join the 1st Swiss ERAS® Implementation program. The 1st Swiss ERAS® Implementation program was initiated under the leadership of Prof N Demartines at CHUV, Lausanne.

The 3rd Swedish ERAS® Implementation program involving the South East Region of Sweden choosing ERAS® implementation as their prime target for improvement in cancer care under the national Regional Cancer Center.

ERAS® Society supporting the ACERTO meeting on ERAS® in Cuiaba, Brazil in March.

The 1st International ERAS® World Society congress was held in Cannes France with 237 delegates from 28 countries. This attracted the leading investigators in Enhanced Recovery and delegates from over 30 countries and 6 continents. The 1st Henrik Kehlet lecture “The Final Frontiers” was delivered by Professor Henrik Kehlet, Copenhagen, Denmark and the ERAS® Society Lecture “Muscle Function and Postoperative Recovery” delivered by Professor Ian McDonald, Nottingham UK.

Many of the lectures are available on this web site and more will come, along with interviews with some of the world experts in ER ERAS® UK held a national conference in Cheltenham November 2-3.

The McGill ERAS® group held the 3rd Canadian Fast Track ERAS® conference November 23rd with support from the ERAS® Society.

2012/2013

The 1st in the series of Enhanced Recovery: Manual of Fast Track Recovery for Colorectal Surgery (Springer) was published by the the ERAS® Society and ERAS® UK under the Editorial leadership of Nader Francis.

Three new and updated ERAS® Society guidelines were published: Colonic resections (Gustafsson et al) Rectal and Pelvic surgery (Nygren et al) and Pancreatic resections (Lassen et al) co-published in World Journal of Surgery and Clinical Nutrition with the endorsement of the International Association for Surgical Metabolism and Nutrition (IASMEN) as part of the International Surgical Society (ISS) and the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN).

The 2nd ERAS® Implementation program initiated in Lausanne March 25.

2013

The 1st French ERAS® symposia supported by the ERAS® Society held in Paris under the leadership of Prof K Slim and P Alfonsi, April 5.

The 3rd ERAS® Society Implementation Program was run in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for the Alberta Health Service and Inner Health, British Colombia in June.

The 1st ERAS® Society supported US symposia on ERAS® hosted by Duke held in October in Washington DC in conjunction with the American College of Surgeons annual congress.

The 1st ERAS® Alberta conference held in Edmonton in October reporting the improved outcomes from the implementation of ERAS® in the two pilot units and inviting other units to join a state wide implementation program.

The 1st ERAS® Society Guideline on Radical Cystectomy was published in Clinical Nutrition (Cerantola et al, Clin Nutr 2014).

2014

The 1st joint meeting between the GERM Society forming the ERAS® Society Chapter for Spain and the ERAS® Society held in Zaragoza held in March.

A joint ERAS® Society symposia was held with SAGES at their annual congress in Salt Lake City in March. At the meeting it was decided that the two societies would co-edit a handbook of ERAS®.

The 2nd World congress of ERAS® Society was held in Valencia, Spain with delegates from more than 458 delegates from 38 countries and all main continents represented. The Kehelt lecture “From Fast Track to ERAS®. A Metabolic journey” was delivered by Franco Carli, Montreal, Canada and the ERAS® Society Lecture “Measuring cognition after anesthesia and surgery” by Stanton Newman, London UK.

2015

The 1st ERAS® Society Guidelines on Gastric resections were published (Mortensen et al, Br J Surg 2014) October:

The 2nd ERAS® Alberta symposia was held in Edmonton following up on the implementation of the 2nd round of hospitals in the province.

The 1st ERAS® Society France symposia held in November in Lyon under the leadership of Prof Mustpha Adham.

February: In Dubai the 1st Pan Arabian ERAS® Meeting was held.

March: The 1st Latin America symposia on ERAS® was held in Mexico City as part of the networks in Surgery and Anaesthesia with delegates from most Latin America countries present.

March: The Spanish ERAS® society GERM officially joins the ERAS® Society group as the ERAS® Chapter for Spain.

The 3rd World congress of ERAS® Society was held in Washington DC as a joint meeting between the ERAS® Society, ASER and EBPOM. 447 delegates joi9ned from 33 countries. The Henrik Kehlet Lecture “Economics of ERAS®” was delivered by Anthony Senagore, Cleveland, Ohio, USA and the ERAS® Society lecture “Physiology and ageing and its effect of recovery” was delivered by K Sree Nair, Rochester, Minn USA.

July: The 1st ERAS® Society Implementation Program was started in Connecticut, as a joint effort by the State Collaborative. Four hospitals joined the program.

August: The ERAS® Society and the Philippines ERAS® Society Chapter signed agreement in Manilla s the 1st national ERAS® Symposia was held under the lead of Prof R Roxas.

In Stockholm in October the European members of the ERAS® Society Guideline leads gathered to discuss and develop the Societies Guideline work.

November: ERAS® UK held the 5th annual Congress in Edinburgh.

The 1st Spanish ERAS® Implementation Program was started in collaboration with GERM. The program involves 10 hospitals from across Spain.

2016

The SAGES/ERAS® Society Manual of Enhanced Recovery programs for gastrointestinal surgery (Springer) was published.

The 1st Latin American ERAS® Society symposia and initiation of the ERAS® Implementation Program for leading centers in Colombia, Mexico and later also Brazil was initiated under the leadership of Prof A Alvarez in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The 1st Asian Australiana and African ERAS® Society Implementation Program was started in Singapore in December with leading centers from The Philippines, Singapore, New Zealand and South Africa joining the program.

January: The 4th ERAS® Alberta Symposia was held in Calgary where the state wide plans for implementation was presented, as were the first economic outcomes figures showing a return of investment of 1.6 on every unit invested.

The 1st ERAS® Society Guidelines recommendation for Anesthesia was published (Feldheiser et al, Acta Anaesth Scannd 2016) and a review on the pathophysiology of the effectiveness of ERAS® (Scott et al, Acta Anaesth Scand, 2016).

The 1st ERAS® Guidelines on ERAS® in major gynecology was published in two parts in Gynecological Oncology (Nelson et al, Gyn Oncol 2016) The 1st Guidelines on ERAS® in Bariatric surgery was published (Thoirell et al, World J Surgery, 2016)

February: In Scottsdale AZ, USA under the lead of T Young Fadok the Mayo Clinic, the 1st ERAS® Society and Mayo Clinic ERAS® event was held.

The ERAS® Society Guidelines on Gynecology was presented at the Key plenary Nezhad Farr symposia on innovation at the annual congress of womens cancer in San Diego, California USA in March

May: The 4th World Congress of ERAS® was held in Lisbon attracting delegates from a record 46 countries. The Henrik Kehlet lecture “Urinary Output in Postoperative Patients” was delivered by Rinaldo Bellomo, Melbourne Australia and the ERAS® Society Lecture “Immobilization and muscle function” Paul Greenhoff, Nottingham, UK.

May: The ERAS® Implementation Program for units in the Netherlands, Portugal, Israel and Turkey was started in Stockholm.

June: The ERAS®Society Guidelines on Liver resection was published.

July: the ERAS® Society website was updated and modernized by Bill Fawcett and Tom Wainwright, the Society’s web Editors. The Implementation Program in Charlotte, North Carolina was successfully completed and the first teaching Center of Excellence in the USA awarded under the leadership of Dr Dionisios Vrochides.

August: Professors Sean Dowd, Mayo Clinic and Pedro T Ramirez, MD Anderson, both authors of the ERAS® Society Guidelines in Gynecological Oncology Surgery and active in the Gynecology Section of the ERAS® Society ran the first of a series of highly appreciated Gynecology Webinars starting with Post Surgical Pain Management.

September: Professor Ken Fearon, the Co-founder of the ERAS® early initiative and later the ERAS® Society, died suddenly, a huge loss for surgery, surgical, cancer and nutrition research and not least ERAS®.

September: The ERAS® Society Guidelines in Bariatric Surgery were published in World Journal of Surgery under the lead of Professor Anders Thorell. The first ERAS® Society Philippines symposia organized in Manilla led by Professor Roxas and the first ERAS® Society Singapore symposia run by Drs Tan and Kwang Yeong were great successes attracting well over 200 delegates each from the hosting and neighbouring countries. The Medical city in Manilla and Tan Tok Seng hospital in Singapore were both awarded Centers of Excellence by the ERAS® Society. v was one of the main topics at the Australian Society of Anesthesiologists annual congress with Professors Mike Scott and Olle Ljungqvist delivering keynote lectures. An ERAS® study day was held in Sydney, Australia in collaboration with Ko Awatea. The first national ERAS® seminar in South Africa was run by Dr Ravi Oodit and Fiona Pieterse with attendees from around the country.

October: The ERAS® Society Guidelines in head and neck cancer Surgery published on line in JAMA Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery under the lead of Professor Joseph C. Dort. The First Brazilian ERAS® Implementation program was finalized successfully for The Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paolo and Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Porto Alegre.

ERAS®USA, the Sister organization of the ERAS® Society in the USA was formally formed at the meeting of the American College of Surgeons in Washington DC. Tonia Young Fadok of the Mayo Clinic, was elected the first President.

November: The ERAS® Nursing group bid farewell to and thanked Dorthe Hjort Jakobsen from Copenhagen, Denmark as lead of the group. Dorthe has been and remains a formidable leader in the field of ERAS® nursing and lead the group since 2010 when the Society was formed. She was thanked as “The ERAS® Queen” by her successor, Angie Balfour from Edinburgh, UK who has been working not only as the local and national nursing lead for ERAS® in Scotland, but also internationally for the ERAS® Society implementing ERAS®. ERAS® Society joined LinkedIn and started a Youtube Channel. showing many lectures and clips from leaders in ERAS®. ERAS® UK held its annual conference in Cardiff, Wales under the excellent lead of Fiona Carter and Nader Francis with more delegates than ever. A special tribute to Ken Fearon was delivered.

2017

January: ERAS® Alberta ran the third ERAS® Symposium hosted by Alberta Health Service, attracting delegates from around Canada with a series of international speakers. JAMA surgery publishes Enhanced Recovery After Surgery: A review describing the fundamental of ERAS® but also the history of ERAS® and its development into the ERAS® Society. This paper remains in the top 5% of all research output scored by Altimetric and is in the 98th percentile of High Attention Score.

February: ERAS® Conference in Phoenix Hosted by the Mayo Clinic was a great success with delegates from primarily the west coast and mid west USA, but also internationally. The 1st ERAS® Conference was held in Bogota, Colombia was hosted by the ERAS® Society Center of Excellence at Reina Sophia Hospital and the VP of Implementation Professor Adrian Alvarez, Argentina. Prof Gregg Nelson, University Calgary, Canada is appointed new General Secretary of the ERAS® Society

March: The ERAS® Society’s effort to develop a research support team for the ERAS® Interactive Audit System was given generous support via an educational grant by Fresenius-Kabi, Germany. Orebro University later joined this by supporting a full time statistician for the project.

May: The ERAS® Society Guidelines on Optimal perioperative Care in Breast Reconstruction was published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery under the lead of Professor Claire Temple-Oberle. ESPEN (The European Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism) published their guidelines on Nutrition in Surgery covering nutritional care in ERAS®. The 5th ERAS® World Congress was held in Lyon, France under the Presidency of Professor Mustapha Adham. The meeting added a day of specialty group meetings including women’s health with gynaecologic oncology and breast surgery as well as urology and nursing, in addition to the annual introductory course. The scientific program covered a range of topics from stress responses, and pathophysiology to fluid management, risks etc. Professor Greet van den Berghe from Belgium gave the Henrik Kehlet lecture “The role of autophagy in the metabolism and outcomes after surgery “. Professor Alessandro Laviano from Italy gave the newly named Ken Fearon lecture (honouring Ken’s work, previously the ERAS® Society lecture) by reviewing much of Ken’s work under the title “Cachexia and the long-term outcome of surgical cancer patients”. The congress attracted delegates from all six continents and around 40 countries.

June: The Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paolo held their first ERAS®Society supported Symposia, a very successful event, where the basic ideas and the developments of ERAS® was discussed in a multi professional manner.

August: A first Memorandum of Understand between the International Surgical Society and the ERAS® Society to make the World Journal of Surgery the official journal of the ERAS® Society is initiated during the world congress of Surgery in Basel, Switzerland. During this congress, a major ERAS® presence was noted not only during the International Association for Surgical Metabolism and Nutrition (IASMEN) session, but also during some of the most attended sessions with the Digestive Surgical Group.

September: The 2nd Singapore ERAS® Symposium was held drawing an even greater attendance. This was followed by another successful 2nd ERAS® Society Philippines symposia in Manilla named From Principle to Practice. These two leading centers have set the scene for further ERAS® implementation in the region.

ERAS®USA hosted the first annual congress in Dallas Texas attracting a large number of Key opinion leaders and speakers to this successful meeting. The event was lead by Prof Tonia Young-Fadok, the President of the Society supported by a strong organizing committee. A key highlight of the meeting was the role of ERAS® in acting on the opioid crisis in the USA. Profs O Ljungqvist, Chair , N Demnartines Treasurer ERAS® Society And T Young Fadok, President ERASUSA


Olle Ljungqvist, Chairman of ERAS® Society delivered a TEDx talk at TEDx Beacon Street Boston on Enhanced Recovery After Surgery.




The Swedish ERAS® Society held its first official event in Stockholm attracting delegates also from Norway. In Sweden there are many users of the ERAS® Interactive Audit System and the society is now aiming at using this as an opportunity to do more research.

 

 

 

 

2018

This was a year of development for the ERAS® Society with a number of activities including a number of ERAS® Society sessions and presentations in collaboration with major hospital organizations and societies. These included The Philippine Colorectal Society, Colorectal surgery / anaesthesia perioperative care organization UK, the Asian Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, the International Hepato Pancreatico Biliary Association, the Colombian Societies of Surgery & Trauma, South African Society of Endoscopic Surgeons, Taiwan Society of Anaesthesia. At many of these events, relationships between the ERAS® Society and these societies were initiated and progressed towards forming national ERAS® Societies that will work side by side with these organizations.

Some special highlights for the year were the first Turkish ERAS® Congress in Ankara in May, which was very well attended and initiated the activities of the Turkish ERAS® Society, the first prehabilitation world congress in Eindhoven, NL, together with the first world Congress on ERAS® in Pediatrics in the USA, (2nd ERAS® USA congress).

The main event for the year was the annual congress was organized in Stockholm, Sweden in collaboration with the Swedish Chapter, SWESPEN. The meeting was held in beautiful pre summer weather in May and gathered a record high attendance of almost 600 delegates from 46 countries. The congress started with a growing number of ERAS® specialty chapters that ran programs during the first day. The newly formed ERAS® Cardiac Surgery joined for the first time, and was also joined by programs organized by specialty chapters in Women’s Health, Urology, Nursing and Allied Health and ERAS®. That day the traditional ERAS® Educational Course was also held with high attendance. For the main program the Society was proud to have the Congress President Professor Anders Thorell (SE) deliver the opening lecture “Improving outcome after Bariatric Surgery by the use of national-registry based studies”. Professor Luca Gianotti (IT) gave the Ken Fearon lecture “Critical aspects of clinical trials and clinical nutrition in surgery and ERAS®” and Professor Pierre-Alain Clavien (CH) the Henrik Kehlet Lecture “New Concepts of Benchmarking in Surgery”.

A highly appreciated session during the congress was the interactive case discussion led by Gregg Nelson (CA, at the podium) and a panel of discussants with different expertise (left to right); Tim Rockall (UK, surgery), Hans de Boer (NL, anesthesia), Angie Balfour (UK, nursing, Larissa Meier (US, gynecology), Leah Gramlich (CAN, Nutrition)

In 2018 the consensus and Delphi based study on Training and Implementation of ERAS® was published alongside a three-part guideline on Caesarian section that was quickly being cited and high numbers of the paper downloaded.

2019

The main event of the year for the ERAS® Society was the 6th World Congress held in May in Liverpool UK and co-hosted by the ERAS®UK. Fiona Carter was the local lead organizer and Francis Nader the President of the congress and the event held in the nicely renovated old dock area. From the post survey it is clear the congress was yet another success, with 90% of the delegates aiming to come back the following year. The attendees, in total 526 from 46 countries, came mostly from the hosting UK as is common, but a major rise in Chinese and US delegates was noted.

As is always the aim for the Society a wide range of professionals involved in ERAS® were represented from a range of different professions including surgeons of a wide range of specialties, anesthesiologists, intensivists, nurses, physiotherapists, dietitians/nutritionists and managers and administrators. During the meeting a manager working group was meeting to discuss how management can support the movement of ERAS® to more units. This was an important step to involve this key stakeholder group and foster the interaction between decision makers and the health professionals.

This year the program was expanded in several ways as a clear sign of the spread of ERAS® principles to more and more surgical domains. The Congress included the 2nd World Congress of ERAS® in the pediatrics, as well as a special session on ERAS® in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, and a new section on Orthopaedic surgery and ERAS® was also in the program. Additionally, The ERAS® Society chapters in Cardiac surgery, Urology, and Women’s health/Gynecological surgery, Nursing and Allied Health professional ERAS® Chapter as well as the traditional Educational Course on ERAS® was held. The main program keynote speakers included Nader Francis delivering the opening lecture “The Global perspective of Recovery”, The Henrik Kehlet lecture by Professor David Jayne (UK) “Does New technology Improve Outcomes?” and The Ken Fearon lecture by Professor Rupert Pearse (UK) “Reducing Variation to Improve Outcomes”. The congress accepted a record 127 submissions and lively discussion around the new research was held in two key sessions and during the poster discussions.

Pediatrics and LMIC countries sharing space during the 7th ERAS® World congress in Liverpool 2019. Left to right: Nader Francis (UK), Martin Koyle (Can), Olle Ljungqvist (SE), Kelly McQueen, (USA), Ravi Oodit (SA), Marilla Sioson (PH), Adrian Alvarez (ARG), David DeBeer (UK), Hans deBoer (NL)

Other key events hosted by ERAS® Society Chapters were the 1st ERAS®Asia conference in Singapore presided by Dr Kwang Yoeng How, and the ERAS® USA congress in New Orleans led by Dr Dionisios Vrochides and several national events such as the annual SwERAS congress.

Continuing and broadening the collaboration with other medical societies and associations, the ERAS® Society was involved in several different events during the year. These included the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiology & the ERAS®USA, Congreso the Advancia de Medicina in Mexico, The Chinese Surgical Week 2019 arranged by Chinese Surgical Society in Chengdu, The Pan Arab Middle East Conference on ERAS® in Oman, the 48tyh World Congress in Surgery held by International Surgical Society Congress in Krakow, The International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders Madrid congress, and COPA 2019, the Sao Paolo Society for Anesthesiology annual congress.

Several guidelines were published including an important consensus paper from the ERAS® Society and ERAS®USA Society on how to report ERAS® Outcomes. The Colorectal guideline was updated for the fourth time this year, and the gynecological oncology surgery for the second time. The first guidelines on Esophagectomy were published, alongside guidelines for Lung surgery and Cardiac surgery. All these papers attracted immediate high attention as shown by altimetric reports.

Several ERAS® Implementation Programs were run during the year, including in some new countries such as Dubai, with growing activities in several countries such as the Netherlands, Spain and Germany as well as in several countries in Latin America and in the USA.

A change in the ERAS® Society Constitution was decided by the General Assembly held in Liverpool during the congress. The Society would from 2020 have a rotating appointment of officers serving in the executive committee, beginning with an election for the position of Treasurer and General Secretary in 2020.

The Broader Executive Committee was increased with new members in a new position; Professor Ulf Gustafsson (SE) and Professor Mary Brindle (Can) appointed as Guideline Officers with the mission to manage the Guideline work for the Society.

2020

The year of 2020 took a very sharp turn early in the year with the COVID-19 sweeping across large parts of the world hitting initially China, and fast spreading to Europe, North and South America and onwards across the world. The pandemic placed much of the world on hold, and in all countries hit by the pandemic resources were diverted from surgical care to intensive care of patients with COVID-19. This put-on halt on many of the activities run by the ERAS® Society. Most of the implementation programs were placed on hold and travel restrictions made conferencing face to face impossible. Already during early spring decisions were taken to postpone the 8th World congress in New Orleans.

Implementation programs were initially put on hold, but as the pandemic was easing somewhat, several of them resumed as the ERAS® Society teachers alongside Encare remodelled the ERAS® Implementation programs to the new situation. Instead of face-to-face programs, complete online programs were rapidly developed and set in action. Using the same curriculum as the standard ERAS® Implementation Program, but with online meetings and additional material available online, many units were able to complete ERAS® Implementation with great success during the ongoing Pandemic. As the pressure of the pandemic was easing care providers in many countries found themselves facing a huge backlog of operations waiting to be performed. This made the need for ERAS® even greater for those not using it to its full potential. This made the interest for the programs the Society runs and for the guidelines grow.

The Society published a number of guidelines, including a guideline on how to make guidelines, updated the guideline on pancreaticoduodenectomy, published new guidelines on Neonatal Intestinal Surgery, Cytoreduction/HIPEC surgery in two parts, Hip and Knee replacement, and Vulvar/vaginal surgery.

The Executive Committee changed some positions in that Bill Fawcett and Tom Wainwright left their positions as Web Editors to serve as Webinar organiser and AHS representative respectively and were replaced by Dr Chris Jones (UK) as a newcomer to the Executive Committee. He was joined by Prof Martin Hubner (CH) who was appointed as Co-Chair of the Educational Committee.

2021

The COVID-19 pandemic continued to cause problems worldwide with very few face to face conferences taking place. As such sadly we had to again postpone our 8th ERAS® World Congress due to be held in New Orleans with ERAS®USA.

 

Despite this setback, our educational output continued in the form of a series of webinars, spearheaded by Bill Fawcett (UK). In February we had our first, entitled ERAS and COVID-19, looking at how best to provide perioperative care during the pandemic. (For more information click here, including event media). This was followed up in April with how ERAS can help reduce perioperative opioid use (more info here). And finally in June we showcased the implementation of ERAS – especially in low- and middle-income countries (more info here).

ERAS sessions were held worldwide in many different scientific meetings F2F where possible or else, on line. One session was particularly important as it was our first with our collaborating European Society of Anaesthesiology held virtually for a global audience.

The ERAS®Society was invited and published a follow up review on the latest developments and current challenges for ERAS in JAMA Surgery as another sign that ERAS remains one of the Hot topics worldwide and the Society in a leading position.

 

With continuing travel restrictions, the Implementation team led by Nicolas Demartines and Valerie Addor (Switzerland), worked exceptionally hard to produce 25 new online modules in a multitude of languages. CHUV also successfully finalized the first complete ERAS Implementation program in China with the Langhzhou University Hospital. An additional 21 new hospitals have been implemented by the ERAS Society globally despite the limitations caused by COVID-19. Virtually all of them have been performed using on line training.

 

The society have continued to publish guidelines and in 2021 the first part of a new emergency laparotomy guidelines and an update to the Bariatric guideline were published.

With some travel restrictions lifted towards the end of the year, some face to face meetings were able to be held. With great excitement our sister chapters in the US, Sweden and Asia were able to hold successful congresses in November. Similarly, Lausanne University Hospital were able to celebrate their 10 year ERAS anniversary, and a number of the ERAS executive committee able to travel and join their celebration.

Left to right: Magnus Iverson, Elisabeth Andersson (current chair) and Lars Johansen (past chair) of the Swedish ERAS Society.

 

As we look towards the new year hopefully the pandemic situation will be such that we can all get together safely in June for our 8th World Congress in Madrid.

Left to right: Hans de Boer (NL), Gregg Nelson (Can), Olle Ljungqvist (SE), Nicolas Demartines (CH), Ulf Gustafsson (SE), Valerie Addor (CH), Martin Hubner (CH), Cathrine Blanc (CH) at the 10 year ERAS anniversary of Lausanne University Hospital.