RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access

Implementation of an integrated preoperative care pathway and regional electronic clinical portal for preoperative assessment Matt-Mouley Bouamrane1,2 * and Frances S Mair2 Background: Effective surgical pre-assessment will depend upon the collection of relevant medical information, good data management and communication between the members of the preoperative multi-disciplinary team. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has implemented an electronic preoperative integrated care pathway (eForm) allowing all hospitals to access a comprehensive patient medical history via a clinical portal on the health-board intranet. Methods: We conducted six face-to-face semi-structured interviews and participated in one focus group and two workshops with key stakeholders involved in the Planned Care Improvement (PCIP) and Electronic Patient Record programmes. We used qualitative methods and Normalisation Process Theory in order to identify the key factors which led to the successful deployment of the preoperative eForm in the health-board. Results: In January 2013, more than 90,000 patient preoperative assessments had been completed via the electronic portal. Two complementary strategic efforts were instrumental in the successful deployment of the preoperativ