Four of every ten operations already under way without entering the patient.

– diabetics and patients on oral anticoagulants already benefit from the major outpatient surgery

Zaragoza, December 2011.- more than 40% of the operations in the Spanish hospitals are made through major outpatient surgery)(CMA), a model which enables the patient to him register the same day without having to enter him, according to the organizers of the update day at CMA, organized by the unit of surgery Mayor ambulatory of the Hospital Clínico Universitario Lozano Blesa, in Zaragoza, with the collaboration of area scientific Menarini. This is made possible by minimally invasive surgical techniques and to the advent of anaesthetics and analgesics safer, said doctor Alfredo Jimenez, Coordinator of the unit. In his view, the use of the CMA is growing in hospitals and considers that in the coming years will exceed 50% of the intervention ”.

Reducing costs by procedure in the CMA reaches 40% in most cases ”, said doctor Jiménez, who stressed the decrease in waiting and lists the best recovery of the patient in their family environment as other associated advantages. Therefore continues, the CMA is an essential tool to help preserve the public health system ”.

The growth of this form of practice surgery has been very rapid and uneven since we began to implement it in the early 1990s ”, adds this expert. Some autonomous regions like Catalonia and Andalucia are close to half of the interventions without hospitalization, while in others the percentage is lower. However, all health policies are a good instrument in this surgical model to the saturation of the hospitals and the ageing of the Spanish population ”, explains.

At the moment the two challenges to the CMA in Spain, indicates this expert, consist in raising its implantation in those communities where its implementation is still limited, and extend it to other patients that previously neglected as risk for this type of intervention, as the diabetic 1,811 and those who receive anticoagulants. However, today there are protocols that allow you to speak to these patients in CMA and with very good results ”, explains.

In recent years, the CMA units are working especially so that new generations of doctors and nurses to form in the surgery without income and contribute their knowledge to the development of ambulatory surgery. It must be part of the routine of the health professional, and it must be understood as a necessary mechanism for the good management of the hospital, essential for the sustainability and efficiency of the health system ”, concludes Dr Jiménez.

Postoperative care

The day also highlights the role of nursing in the CMA, essential for the recovery of the patient ”, points Angeles Luengo, supervisor of nursing of the unity of CMA in the Clinical Hospital of Zaragoza. These health professionals have a responsibility to give the instructions appropriate to the patients themselves or their main caregivers to keep his recovery out of the hospital the right course.

Since that is called the patient to quote surgery until that is high in the afternoon, we are nurses who make individualised follow-up of each one, to transmit confidence and security ”, adds. Therefore calls for gradually strengthening these units in hospitals that has been shown that the recovery in the home is much more effective ”.