About 500 participants, from 41 countries around the world, were in Lisbon between May 31st and June 2nd, at the World Congress of the ERAS® Society, the Portuguese, in particular Hospital da Luz Lisboa (HLL), were in the spotlight. After all, Luz Saúde, first at Hospital Beatriz Ângelo (HBA), during the period of the Public-Private Partnership, and later at Hospital da Luz Lisboa (HLL), was the great driver of this innovative project in Portugal. Hospital da Luz Lisboa is, in fact, today the only ERAS® Center of Excellence in Portugal and is already a world reference in this area. Rui Maio , clinical director of the HLL, presided over the Congress, having overseen opening the works of this event, right after the welcome message from the president of the ERAS® Society, the Dutch anesthetist Hans de Boer. In a presentation on the journey of the ERAS (Enhanced Recovery After Surgery) program in Portugal, Rui Maio spoke about the mobilization of multidisciplinary teams, the change in the organization's culture and the clinical results that, over these years, the ERAS teams in the Group's hospitals have been obtaining. He also mentioned that, as the only ERAS® Center of Excellence in Portugal, the Hospital da Luz Lisboa team is responsible for working with Portuguese public and private hospitals, supporting the implementation of the ERAS program in our country's health system. To that extent, it provided training to almost a dozen hospital institutions, which are now part of the ERAS model. The clinical director finally recalled the key ideas that this program entails: ERAS is a multidisciplinary, multimodal, personalized, and value-based medicine program from the patient's perspective. Francisco Mota , Director of Strategy and Business Analytics at Luz Saúde, who has also been part of the Group's ERAS team since the project began in Portugal at HBA and HLL, was one of the guest speakers, to talk about how to 'convince management to invest in ERAS'. The following debate, moderated by the CEO of Luz Saúde, Isabel Vaz , also included the participation of the executive director of the National Health Service (SNS), Fernando Araújo, who, in front of all the assistance, announced his intention to implement ERAS in all public health service hospitals. Hospital da Luz specialists who make up the ERAS team moderated different debates and lectures, with a strong presence at the most important ERAS® world congress. During the 3 days in which the 9th edition of the ERAS® World Congress took place, around 150 works were presented, in the most diverse specialties, which reinforced the base of clinical and scientific evidence that supports the ERAS program.
