Advantages and disadvantages of day surgery in a department of general surgery.

INTRODUCTION: We make our study of day surgery to awaken health worker that is possible to reduce the mean hospitalization time for each type of procedure: it needs improvement in communication, organizational and medical skills with a specific training both for medical and nursing staff.

MATERIAL OF STUDY: A retrospective study on all patients who underwent day surgery procedures from 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2011. Out of 486 hospitalizations for programmed surgery, 177 (36.41%) were made in Day Surgery (DS) for a total of 450 operations. Of those patients, 105 (59.3%) stayed Overnight.

RESULTS: Re-conversion rate of day surgery hospitalization reached 1% and referred to haemorrhagy post-hemorroidectomy.

DISCUSSION: Nowadays in Italy many surgical procedures that could be performed in day surgery, are made in routine hospitalization with an higher cost for NHS. In our department DS is made for small surgery but even other procedures (hernioplasty, hemorroidectomy, stripping of vein safena, etc.). Our day surgery activity has had some negative aspects both for the availability of operating rooms and for the possibility of improvement of specific skills in our health staff.

CONCLUSIONS: Day surgery permits a better use of resources and also a cut of costs. The dates of our series demonstrate the necessity of improving DS, considering trends of the most part of European Countries. The Authors highlight the importance of creating specific Units for Day-Surgery activity to permit a training for all health staff.