Shorter stay urology: the way forward.

A large part of the total cost of the treatment of surgical patients in hospitals is from the duration of hospitalization. Urology is well suited for short-stay surgery, and a large proportion of our work is elective in nature. We audited our in-patients over a 6-month period and found that 77% of our patients stayed for 3 days or fewer. The advantages of having elective 5-day beds in maintaining our throughput without requiring an increase in the total number of beds is discussed.