Enhanced recovery pathways in thoracic surgery: the Shanghai experience

The attempts to implement the enhanced recovery (ER) program based on multiple specialties to minimize errors and complications in addition to speeding up the patient’s treatment and recovery as much as possible. In China mainland, there is no unified hospital system and there are large differences between hospitals’ results and protocols. The patient length of stay rate at the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital (very high-volume referral hospital) is 7 days and may be considered a very good result compared to international rates. Perhaps thanks to these results may be due to our belief in the importance of minimally invasive approaches, and their positive effects on the patients and conduct as routinely as possible, in addition to starting to build our ER protocols. The patient should be involved in this program since his first visit to the clinic until the day he left the hospital after undergoing the operation.