Quality assurance of pre-operative assessment--a review of quality assurance activities related to pre-operative assessment in nine hospitals in The Netherlands.

Pre-operative assessment of patients for surgery is one of the most prevalent topics for quality assurance by peer-review in Dutch hospitals. This article describes the experiences with pre-operative assessment in nine hospitals. It is discussed why preoperative assessment is performed, what tests are performed (chest X-ray, ECG, laboratory tests), and how the pre-operative assessment procedure is organized. Hospital protocols are compared with literature findings and audit studies from two hospitals show the actual compliance to the protocols. It is concluded that peer-review committees and audit studies play a major part in the assurance of the quality of preoperative assessment.