New Optimised Pre-Surgical Care Framework for SA

In a South Aus­tralian first, the Statewide Sur­gi­cal and Peri­op­er­a­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work (SSPC­CN) has devel­oped an Opti­mised Pre-Sur­gi­cal Care (OPSC) Frame­work for patients under­go­ing an elec­tive surgery procedure. 

Through a struc­tured approach to assess­ing patient risk, the OPSC Frame­work pro­vides rec­om­mend­ed pre-sur­gi­cal inter­ven­tions to opti­mise a patient’s health pri­or to under­go­ing an elec­tive sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure. Suc­cess­ful opti­mi­sa­tion of patients’ health may improve sur­gi­cal out­comes and, in some cas­es, elim­i­nate the need for surgery altogether.

The SSPC­CN facil­i­tat­ed a suc­cess­ful work­shop in Sep­tem­ber 2022 involv­ing stake­hold­ers from across the South Aus­tralian health sec­tor to finalise the Frame­work and iden­ti­fy bar­ri­ers and enablers to imple­men­ta­tion of the approach across SA. Ear­ly oppor­tu­ni­ties dis­cussed includ­ed lever­ag­ing the cur­rent e‑referrals and Clin­i­cal Pri­ori­ti­sa­tion Cri­te­ria work occur­ring in the system.

A fol­low-up work­shop is planned in May 2023 with a broad range of stake­hold­ers, from clin­i­cians to con­sumers, across var­i­ous parts of the health sec­tor includ­ing state gov­ern­ment, pri­ma­ry health care, research and non-gov­ern­ment organ­i­sa­tions. This ses­sion will iden­ti­fy and pri­ori­tise sus­tain­able, equi­table and scal­able oppor­tu­ni­ties to imple­ment the Frame­work in South Australia. 

If you’d like to be involved or learn more about the imple­men­ta­tion plans for the OPSC project, please con­tact CEIH.​SurgicalPerioperative@​sa.​gov.​au.