Standardization of perioperative management: clinical pathways.

Many initiatives have been introduced in the past decades to standardize and improve clinical perioperative care and thereby improve patient care. Clinical pathways (also known as integrated care pathways, critical pathways, critical paths, care paths) are structured multidisciplinary care plans that detail essential steps in the care of patients with a specific clinical problem. They are designed to support the implementation and translation of national guidelines into local protocols and their subsequent application to clinical practice. In surgery, clinical pathways are standardized protocols for the management of patients who have common conditions undergoing common surgical procedures.