Randomized clinical trial of one-day surgery. Patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and costs.
One hundred and eighty-two patients undergoing tubal ligation, hernia repair, or meniscectomy were randomly assigned to either one-day or inpatient surgery. The study's objective is to compare these two modes of care with regard to patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and costs of the episode of care. A significantly higher proportion of one-day patients than their hospitalized counterparts found their stay to be too short and would prefer hospitalization as an alternative. Clinical outcomes were comparable in both groups. One-day tubal ligation and hernia repair were found to be cost-efficient and averaged hospital savings of $86.00 and $115.00 more than inpatient care. Meniscectomy deviated from this trend in that treatment costs were significantly higher for one-day surgery patients. Analysis of personal and physician costs did not show any significant difference between the two modes of care.
D000328:Adult; D000556:Ambulatory Surgical Procedures / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research; D006745:Hospital Bed Capacity, 300 to 499; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013511:Minor Surgical Procedures; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D011792:Quebec; D011897:Random Allocation