Procedure for data collection.
Ethics approval was obtained from the affiliated hospital and university research ethics boards.
Potential participants were identified from the elective surgery list five to seven days before their scheduled procedure and urgent list at least one day before their scheduled procedure.
Identified individuals were approached to participate by a research assistant before their surgery.
Patients who were not from the immediate geographical catchment area were approached the day before surgery.
Once written informed consent was obtained, participants were randomly assigned by the cardiac surgery triage coordinator at a planned ratio of 3:1 to either ACNP-led or hospitalist-led postoperative care using a randomization procedure.
the coordinator then informed the ACNP and the hospitalists which patients were assigned to their care.
this randomization procedure was selected because there was one ACNP providing care in our study on a part-time basis and two hospitalists, which limited the number of patients who could be assigned to ACNP-led care.