[Role of ambulatory surgery in France -- international comparisons]

Ambulatory surgery in France was under constraining rules since 1992. In 1998, there were 7,600 ambulatory stations which allowed 2,700,000 ambulatory procedures in a year. French Association for Ambulatory Surgery and International Association for Ambulatory Surgery adopted a limited list of 18 reference procedures to launch a survey on the prevalence of ambulatory surgery. The prevalence rate of ambulatory procedures among this list raised from 35.2% to 39.3% in 1999. This rate was the same in public and private health institutions. Ambulatory practice was increasing more than the inpatient procedures. Intercountry comparisons pointed out France as the tenth country for ambulatory prevalence among 13 members of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This underlined the fact that there was probably a growth potential for ambulatory surgery in France.