Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) Australia

Disruptive Innovation1 improves a product or service in ways that the market does not expect. It has shaped various industries (including the motor, airline and entertainment industries) to bring quality, accessibility and affordability to the forefront of consumer demand. Such ‘disruptive’ economic and market forces will also drive change in the healthcare industry to bring about increasing value.

The current value proposition (Value = Outcomes / Cost) in healthcare is suboptimal—with developed countries spending >10% of their national gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare and yet 20-30% of this expenditure is wasted (Figure 1)2. Perioperative factors that contribute to such ‘waste’ include inadequate preoperative optimization of patients, unnecessary laboratory testing, and preventable postoperative complications—with between one fifth and one quarter of patients suffering postoperative events (Figure 2)3.