Perioperative Anticoagulant Use for Surgery Evaluation Study Part 2 Pilot

The proposed PAUSE-2 RCT study is the logical next step to the Perioperative Anticoagulant Use for Surgery Evaluation (PAUSE) study, which was completed on August 31, 2018. Both studies address the perioperative management of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who are receiving a direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) and require an elective surgery/procedure. PAUSE did not address safe management of patients having a high-bleed-risk surgery/neuraxial anesthesia in whom there is concern about bleeding, especially neuraxial-related epidural hematomas that can lead to paralysis; such patients are often managed by the approach recommended by the American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA). In PAUSE-2, investigators will test the hypothesis: (i) for patients having a high-bleed-risk surgery/neuraxial anesthesia, the simpler \"PAUSE management\" is as safe (non-inferior) to the more complex \"ASRA management\". PAUSE-2 will establish a standard for perioperative DOAC management in patients having high-bleed-risk surgery or neuraxial anesthesia. To start, this will be a pilot study of a larger PAUSE-2-RCT. The investigators will be conducting this pilot study to assess the feasibility of the study at this smaller scale.