Ideas That Work: Preoperative Checklist Helps Seniors and Their Caregivers Prepare for Surgery

Practical pearls from your colleagues

Looking for tools and resources to better help seniors prepare for their upcoming procedures at your facility? A free checklist from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) offers a treasure trove of potential ideas.

Older adults, of course, require even more preoperative consideration than their younger counterparts do. Because so many senior surgical patients require inpatient procedures, ACS is focusing its Geriatric Surgery Verification (GSV) program on hospitals who can earn the status of an ACS Surgical Quality Partner upon adoption, with the checklist as a major component.

The idea behind the GSV program is to enable hospitals to use their limited resources more effectively and efficiently by enabling providers to confidently address the most important aspects of care for surgical patients 75 and over, and to create plans to help them achieve their care goals.

However, outpatient centers who regularly treat senior patients could benefit from the GSV program’s 32 comprehensive, evidence-based surgical standards to optimize senior care as well.

“This checklist is grounded in the evidence-based standards of our Geriatric Surgery Verification Program and can help both patients and providers ensure high-quality care and likely better outcomes,” says Clifford Y. Ko, MD, MS, MSHS, FACS, FASCRS, director of the ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care.

ACS says the questions on the checklist can help patients, families and caregivers spur detailed conversations and communicate more effectively with surgical care teams about how to navigate the complexities of preparing for surgery and its benefits and risks, how to minimize the chances of postoperative delirium, and what patients can expect during recovery.

The checklist, available for download here, could provide a great starting point for creating your own customized preoperative checklist for senior patients. OSM