PAUSE

Patient-centered multidisciplinary care for veterans undergoing surgery

PAUSE is a hybrid type I effectiveness-implementation trial of a multidisciplinary intervention to optimize frail patients planning to undergo surgery at three Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers. Under the leadership of Dr. Shipra Arya at the Palo Alto VA this trial will initiate a multidisciplinary pre-operative conference involving representative from surgery, anesthesia, case management, rehabilitation, palliative care, geriatrics, and nutrition that will make recommendations for the optimization of frail patients who are scheduled for operations in the near future. The trial will test how this intervention changes post-operative mortality, discharge to medical facilities, rehospitalizations, and time at home after operations.

The Surgical Palliative Care Lab will coordinate the work of this trial at the Nashville campus of the Tennessee Valley Healthcare System.