UAB Gastrointestinal Surgery Division Director Daniel Chu, M.D., has played a crucial role in the widespread implementation of Enhanced Recovery Programs (ERPs) in the Department of Surgery and beyond.

Assembling a Task Force

Chu has long been an enthusiastic advocate of ERPs, which are comprehensive initiatives that work to improve patient recovery through methods such as promoting multimodal anesthesia methods, working to reduce post-operative opioid use, and encouraging patients to engage with their healing process.

After joining UAB in 2014, Chu worked with UAB Department of Anesthesiology Professor Jeffrey Simmons, M.D., MSHQS, FASA, to create a multidisciplinary team focused on improving patient recovery at UAB.

Chu, Simmons, and the UAB CARE team won the UAB Health System Innovation Award in 2016 for their work, which showed that lengths of stay and pain scores improved for colorectal surgery patients as part of the ERP program and furthered their efforts to continue best practices and healthcare programming.

Next Steps

In 2018, Chu received a grant for a pilot project from the UAB Health Services Foundation’s General Endowment Fund (HSF-GEF). The grant was focused on implementing a patient engagement tool in surgery and studying its impact. Since then, Chu's team has made significant progress by incorporating a tool called Seamless MD into their daily practice. This system has been integrated into the digital health system and allows surgical teams to quickly track their patients and monitor their post-surgery status in real-time.

In 2021, the UAB Enhanced Recovery Program grew even further. With the support of key leaders at UAB including Dr. Tony Jones, a core team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurse leaders, and administrators were assembled to take the program to the next level. The mission is now to implement ERPs across all surgical service lines so that all surgical patients can experience the benefits of ERPs.