title: Pediatric day-care surgery: a 30-year hospital experience.
abstract: Over a 30-year period (may 1955 to December 1985), day care surgery was performed on 39,654 patients at the Winnipeg Children's Hospital (WCH). Up to 51% of all pediatric surgical cases and 59% of elective pediatric cases, involving more than 50 different procedures, were performed annually on a day-care basis. The overall incidence of postoperative problems and admission to hospital was 1.5% and 1.1%, respectively. A unique preoperative home visiting program by nurses was demonstrably effective in reducing late cancellations by 75%. The WCH experience adds further evidence that day-care surgery in a pediatric hospital is safe and effective for a large proportion of infants and children requiring operation.
mesh_terms: D000556:Ambulatory Surgical Procedures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D003152:Community Health Nursing; D006699:Home Care Services; D006760:Hospitalization; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006782:Hospitals, Special / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008350:Manitoba; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D011300:Preoperative Care; D014600:Utilization Review