[Ambulatory surgery clinic in a public general hospital. Organization and results]

In surgery a day care clinic is defined as an institution in which patients undergo elective operations the day of their admission and are discharged within 24 h after surgery. An important goal of day care surgery is to avoid unnecessary hospitalisations however providing the patient with the same quality of treatment and personal satisfaction. This presentation describes the patients selection, information and follow-up, the organization of the day care system, the computerized quality control and the medical outcome. Our experience is based on a 2-year period of day care surgery in a general community hospital. The results of 581 consecutively operated, not selected, patients are presented. Quality control was performed for all patients during their stay at the day care unit, and for 98.5% as follow-up control by the General Practitioners. The most frequent operations were: arthroscopies, meniscectomies, removals of implants after osteosynthesis, decompressions of peripheral nerves, large excisions of skin-tumors, bursectomies, reconstructions of torn ligaments, hernial repairs, strippings of varicose veins, hemorrhoidectomies and operations of the anal and genital region. We present the patients age, the type of anesthesia, the type of operation, eventual complications (in clinic, 24 hours after discharge and at the end of the treatment), the medical results as well as the costs of the after-treatment.