[Effiency in surgery (author's transl)].

Increase in the cost of medical care force us to adopt "medical rationalisation" instead of as previously "hospital rationalisation". This medical rationalisation constitutes a new, well-thought out way of putting questions about diagnosis, therapy and after-care. We must abandon the opinion that the prestige of a surgical department rests in the number of beds. Instead we must use other yardsticks such as the greater use of ambulant care, the shortest hospital stay for routine operations, the shortest preoperative waiting times and an increased operation frequency. Moreover, we need a diagnosis fixed from the start, a large enough operation capacity and sufficient possibilities for postoperative care, stringency in keeping agreed admittances and discharges as regards elective routine surgery and intimate co-operation between doctors, hospital economists, nursing staff and other experts.