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Improving peri-operative fluid management in a large teaching hospital: pragmatic studies on the effects of changing practice

Improving peri-operative fluid management in a large teaching hospital: pragmatic studies on the effects of changing practice
Improving peri-operative fluid management in a large teaching hospital: pragmatic studies on the effects of changing practice
Concerns about the over-prescription of peri-operative fluids, particularly normal saline, culminated in the recent publication of UK national guidelines on fluid prescription during and after surgery. A working group comprising members of the nutrition support team, surgeons, anaesthetists and pharmacists therefore sought to reduce the overall levels of fluid prescription and to limit normal saline usage in our large Teaching Hospital by producing written local fluid prescribing guidelines and holding a series of fluid prescription education sessions for consultants and junior staff. Ideally, the success of such measures would have been determined by studies on fluid balance, body weight and/or measured body water in large numbers of individual patients in a large cluster-randomised controlled trial. However, this would have proved logistically difficult and very costly especially as it is notoriously difficult to rely on the accuracy of daily fluid balance charts in large numbers of patients on busy post-operative surgical wards. We therefore undertook a pragmatic study, comparing historical data on fluid type/volume prescribed (from both individual and ward level pharmacy records), oedema status and clinical outcomes from 2002 with two prospective audits of similar data carried out during 2008 and 2009. Our data showed that in the comparable, elective surgical patients within each audit, there was a decline in total intravenous fluids prescribed over the first 5 post-operative days from 21·1 litres per patient in 2002 to 14·2 litres per patient in 2009 (P<0·05), while pharmacy records showed that the proportion of 0·9% saline supplied declined from 60% to 35% of all fluids supplied to the surgical wards involved, with a concomitant increase in the use of 4%/0·18% dextrose-saline and Hartmann's solution. Alongside these changes in fluid prescribing, the number of patients with clinically apparent oedema declined from 53% in 2002 to 36% in 2009; gut function returned more quickly (6 d in 2002 v. 4 d in 2009, P<0·05) and the length of stay improved from 13 d in 2002 to 10 d in 2009, P<0·05). Although we accept that other factors might have contributed to the observed changes in these clinical parameters, we believe that the measures to reduce fluid and saline administration were the major contributors to these improved clinical outcomes.
0029-6651
499-507
De Silva, A.N.
8bab755b-b8da-4de5-80e5-652d75a06b49
Scibelli, T.
11c39f52-aa73-4727-90e9-fe98045a0b48
Itobi, E.
59becaf1-ba3a-4637-8320-68fab4f1c0be
Austin, Peter
6c773e56-407c-47e5-a957-4b102e6fbb68
Abu-Hilal, M.
384e1c60-8519-4eed-8e92-91775aad4c47
Wootton, S.A.
bf47ef35-0b33-4edb-a2b0-ceda5c475c0c
Stroud, M.A.
1665ae65-0898-4848-bf0d-baec8f2bb078
De Silva, A.N.
8bab755b-b8da-4de5-80e5-652d75a06b49
Scibelli, T.
11c39f52-aa73-4727-90e9-fe98045a0b48
Itobi, E.
59becaf1-ba3a-4637-8320-68fab4f1c0be
Austin, Peter
6c773e56-407c-47e5-a957-4b102e6fbb68
Abu-Hilal, M.
384e1c60-8519-4eed-8e92-91775aad4c47
Wootton, S.A.
bf47ef35-0b33-4edb-a2b0-ceda5c475c0c
Stroud, M.A.
1665ae65-0898-4848-bf0d-baec8f2bb078

De Silva, A.N., Scibelli, T., Itobi, E., Austin, Peter, Abu-Hilal, M., Wootton, S.A. and Stroud, M.A. (2010) Improving peri-operative fluid management in a large teaching hospital: pragmatic studies on the effects of changing practice. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 69 (4), 499-507. (doi:10.1017/S0029665110003824). (PMID:20875195)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Concerns about the over-prescription of peri-operative fluids, particularly normal saline, culminated in the recent publication of UK national guidelines on fluid prescription during and after surgery. A working group comprising members of the nutrition support team, surgeons, anaesthetists and pharmacists therefore sought to reduce the overall levels of fluid prescription and to limit normal saline usage in our large Teaching Hospital by producing written local fluid prescribing guidelines and holding a series of fluid prescription education sessions for consultants and junior staff. Ideally, the success of such measures would have been determined by studies on fluid balance, body weight and/or measured body water in large numbers of individual patients in a large cluster-randomised controlled trial. However, this would have proved logistically difficult and very costly especially as it is notoriously difficult to rely on the accuracy of daily fluid balance charts in large numbers of patients on busy post-operative surgical wards. We therefore undertook a pragmatic study, comparing historical data on fluid type/volume prescribed (from both individual and ward level pharmacy records), oedema status and clinical outcomes from 2002 with two prospective audits of similar data carried out during 2008 and 2009. Our data showed that in the comparable, elective surgical patients within each audit, there was a decline in total intravenous fluids prescribed over the first 5 post-operative days from 21·1 litres per patient in 2002 to 14·2 litres per patient in 2009 (P<0·05), while pharmacy records showed that the proportion of 0·9% saline supplied declined from 60% to 35% of all fluids supplied to the surgical wards involved, with a concomitant increase in the use of 4%/0·18% dextrose-saline and Hartmann's solution. Alongside these changes in fluid prescribing, the number of patients with clinically apparent oedema declined from 53% in 2002 to 36% in 2009; gut function returned more quickly (6 d in 2002 v. 4 d in 2009, P<0·05) and the length of stay improved from 13 d in 2002 to 10 d in 2009, P<0·05). Although we accept that other factors might have contributed to the observed changes in these clinical parameters, we believe that the measures to reduce fluid and saline administration were the major contributors to these improved clinical outcomes.

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Published date: November 2010
Organisations: Cancer Sciences

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Local EPrints ID: 172177
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/172177
ISSN: 0029-6651
PURE UUID: 9bfae3db-57c2-4b24-bff9-a08fb7cd264a

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Date deposited: 25 Jan 2011 08:39
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:28

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Contributors

Author: A.N. De Silva
Author: T. Scibelli
Author: E. Itobi
Author: Peter Austin
Author: M. Abu-Hilal
Author: S.A. Wootton
Author: M.A. Stroud

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