[Assessment of day surgery in a district training hospital: safety, efficacy and patient's satisfaction].

OBJECTIVE

To assess the quality of day surgery in the St. Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands.

DESIGN

Prospective and descriptive.

METHODS

During one year all patients treated by general surgeons in ambulatory surgery of the St. Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein, the Netherlands (breast surgery (n = 232), hernia repair (n = 143), varicose vein surgery (n = 137), lymph node or lump excision (n = 85), (peri-)anal surgery (n = 70), ganglion surgery (n = 41), removal of bone implants (n = 41), laparoscopic cholecystectomy (n = 23), miscellaneous (n = 82); total 854) were evaluated by telephone questionnaires six weeks after surgery, to measure the following three aspects of quality of care: safety, efficacy and patient's satisfaction. Questions were asked about complications, visits to the emergency room, the outpatient clinic and the general practitioner and extra care at home. Unplanned clinical admissions following day surgery and re-admissions were registered. All outpatient clinic charts were also checked for complications. Whenever the registration of complications was incomplete the patient's general practitioner was contacted. All patients gave informed consent.

RESULTS

After 854 planned day cases 823 patients (96.4%) returned home the same day. Reasons for clinical admission following day surgery were pain and/or nausea (n = 8), an operation late in the afternoon (n = 7), haemorrhage (n = 6), more extensive surgery than expected (n = 3), others (n = 7). Of all patients who returned home the same day and about whom the interview yielded adequate information (n = 656; 80%) 54 (7%) suffered from a complication (wound infection (n = 28), haemorrhage (n = 7), haematoma (n = 5), seroma (n = 3), phlebitis (n = 2), infection skin (n = 2), wound dehiscence (n = 2), others (n = 5)). Six patients were re-admitted. In the hospital and outpatient clinic 40 patients were seen without an appointment (6%) and 91 patients visited their general practitioner (14%). After surgery 84 (13%) patients were helped at home by friends or family. Of the group of patients who were successfully treated in day care 14% would have preferred an overnight stay.