INTRODUCTION: The ambulatory surgery includes those surgical procedures that require a limited period of post-operative recovery, so that patients will be discharged from hospital on the same day of their surgical operation. OBJECTIVES: This publication aims at both, explaining our Service way of working as an integrated unit of ambulatory surgery, and it also tries to revise the results which have been obtained during our first 5 years working together. METHOD AND MATERIALS: Three hundred and thirty-nine patients, with an average age of 37.5 years (3-84), have been included in this report which sets out the medical record of this patients selection, their pathologies, the different procedures used, the kind of anaesthesia as well as the criterion to discharge them from hospital. RESULTS: Intra-surgical complications have arisen in 4 (1.2%) of our patients, immediate complications in 24 patients (7%) and late ones in 33 (9.7%) of our patients. According to the results of an anonymous inquiry which has been polled systematically to all our patients, 95% of those polled are completely satisfied with this new way of medical attention. CONCLUSIONS: The ambulatory surgery means a slight change in our patients' way of life. It also diminishes hospital costs, morbidity is similar to the one produced in hospitalization and it implies an important challenge for the professionals of this Service.
INTRODUCTION: The ambulatory surgery includes those surgical procedures that require a limited period of post-operative recovery, so that patients will be discharged from hospital on the same day of their surgical operation. OBJECTIVES: This publication aims at both, explaining our Service way of working as an integrated unit of ambulatory surgery, and it also tries to revise the results which have been obtained during our first 5 years working together. METHOD AND MATERIALS: Three hundred and thirty-nine patients, with an average age of 37.5 years (3-84), have been included in this report which sets out the medical record of this patients selection, their pathologies, the different procedures used, the kind of anaesthesia as well as the criterion to discharge them from hospital. RESULTS: Intra-surgical complications have arisen in 4 (1.2%) of our patients, immediate complications in 24 patients (7%) and late ones in 33 (9.7%) of our patients. According to the results of an anonymous inquiry which has been polled systematically to all our patients, 95% of those polled are completely satisfied with this new way of medical attention. CONCLUSIONS: The ambulatory surgery means a slight change in our patients' way of life. It also diminishes hospital costs, morbidity is similar to the one produced in hospitalization and it implies an important challenge for the professionals of this Service.