The South African Collaborative Surgical Outcomes Study (SACSOS)

SACSOS is a patient-centered prospective observational cohort study.

Initially, clinical teams in the South African private health care sector will be approached. In later phases of the study, recruitment will include eligible patients in the South African public health care sector.

Patient engagement and -participation will be sought during the recruitment process by engaging with the clinical team (surgeon, anaesthetist, hospital clinical manager) for individual patient care (at a micro level); in data collection using a patient-centric platform; and in the follow up after surgery. Data will be collected by patients using a digital platform, the Perioperative Shared Health Record (PSHR). De-identified data will be extracted from the database at predetermined intervals and made available to the principal investigator for analysis.

The PSHR will be updated to optimise health information exchange between the surgical patient and clinical team members during the study.

Participation from health care providers will be in a team-based approach, including surgeon(s) and/or anaesthetist(s) at each specific center. A core group of participating centers will be identified.

The study will focus on patient participation with the web-based platform as the primary recruitment method. This will reduce the need for clinician input, and promote greater patient-centeredness. Patient participation and data capturing require internet access to the web-based platform.

Inclusion criteria

• Adult patients presenting for any surgical procedure at South African hospitals during the specified study period.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients unable to provide consent to participation.
• Patients whose legal guardian is unable to provide consent to participation (if applicable).
• Patients unable to nominate next-of-kin, guardian of or a person of their choice, as their representative during follow-up.