Introduction/Background Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) is a multidisciplinary approach in perioperative care, which can improve clinical outcomes and save medical resources. As every public hospital in Korea redistributed medical resources to COVID-19 patient care in a timely manner, the number of beds assigned to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Seoul Metropolitan Government Boramae Medical Center decreased by 42% during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Our department promptly adapted ERAS to overcome the hospital bed shortage and maintain surgical volume. In this study, we analyzed the result of the ERAS implementation for gynecologic cancer patients by comparing surgical volume, hospital stays, and complication rate between the pre and post-pandemic era.

Methodology The postpandimic era was defined from March 2020 to February 2022. During the era, the number of beds assigned to our department maintained between 15~17, an average of 42% reduction from 27 beds. The prepandemic era was defined from March 2018 to February 2020 for comparison. We compared the gynecologic cancer surgery count, the time lag from diagnosis to surgery, mode of surgery, hospital stays, postoperative pain score, and readmission rate due to unexpected reasons.

Results The number of cancer surgery was similar between the two groups (189 in pre-pandemic vs. 205 in post-pandemic), and the type of surgery and cancer was not significantly different. The time lag between diagnosis and surgery was not significantly different (16.37 vs 18.51 days, p = 0.258). Hospital stays were significantly shorter in the post-pandemic ERAS group (9.28 vs 7.10 days, p = 0.004). Pain score after 72 hours of surgery was lower in the post-pandemic ERAS group (p = 0.010), although pain score within 72 hours was similar. 11(5.8%) and 13(6.3%) patients require readmission within 30 days after discharge due to unexpected reasons, but there was no statistical difference (p = 0.487).

Conclusion .

Disclosures The implementation of ERAS effectively overcame the hospital bed shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic without compromising clinical outcomes.