Introduction: The Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) protocol has been developed to reduced hospital LOS and complications following colorectal surgery. The ERAS protocol requires compliance and inter-professional team effort to improve clinical outcomes after colorectal surgery.

Methods: The prospective ERAS protocol was implemented from July 2018 and concluded July 2019 was compared retrospectively to patients who had the same surgical procedure from July 2017 to June 2018 at a single institution. Risk stratification was performed utilizing Clavien-Dindo classification and the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database for ERAS components compliance.

Results: A total of 109 patients were included: 55 patients in Pre-ERAS and 54 in the Post-ERAS with no statistical differences in co-morbidities. For postoperative outcomes, there was no significant difference in regard to surgical site infection (1.82% vs 0.0%, p =1), organ space SSI (1.8% vs 3.7%, p =0.987). Mean hospital LOS, 5. 89 ± 2.62 days in Pre-ERAS and 4.94 ± 2.269 days in Post- ERAS (p = 0.047), statistically significant. Seven patients in the Pre-ERAS and five patients in the Post -ERAS were re-admitted within 30 days of surgery (p = 0.785).

Conclusion: The implementation of ERAS protocol decreased the mean hospital LOS by twenty-four hours that is statistically significant. This study demonstrates limited statistical significance in some variables contributed by small sample size and limited duration of study.