In 2009, day surgery celebrated its 100th anniversary! What a long way since then, to experience real development over the past 30 years, particularly in the United States. This development has been made possible thanks to the many advances made in surgery and anesthesia.

Ambulatory surgery is not an invention. It is an innovation, generating progress in organizations, behavioral reforms, professionalization of health actors. It is an organizational concept centered on the patient. Indeed, it is not the act which is ambulatory but the patient. Patient selection must be based on medical, psychosocial and environmental criteria.

Based on these findings, the general surgery department of Blida decided to open an ambulatory surgery unit (UCA), unique on a national scale, whose pilot phase began in March 2019, which unfortunately, was hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim is to achieve a sustainable transfer from traditional hospitalization to the outpatient sector. The UCA will in particular contribute to reducing public health expenditure, to de-dramatize the surgical act for the patient, to ensure a better organization of work, an improvement in the quality of interventions, a reduction in days of hospitalization.

Doing day surgery means submitting surgery to the law of efficiency and productivity. This is not “bobology” or office surgery. On the contrary, various interventions are performed, ranging from wall surgery to carcinological surgery of pure excision without reconstitution. You have to understand that it's not about breaking records, speed isn't the goal, it's the result. You have to organize, manage and evaluate.

The development of day surgery has been listed as a priority by the general surgery department of Blida, setting a target of 50% of surgical procedures performed on day surgery by 2027.

The short-term future perspective is to create a research laboratory in ambulatory surgery (LRCA) whose objective is to promote this procedure and to ensure university training by giving all the actors involved in ambulatory surgery (doctors , non-medical staff, administrative staff, residents) the knowledge and means necessary to create, develop and evaluate day surgery activities, ensuring quality of care and patient safety.

Finally, the management of these "active" patients who "go home" after the intervention requires clear and precise texts from the legislator and learned societies, complete and detailed information on the operating procedure, but also flexibility to allow the medical team to favor the risk/benefit ratio when necessary.

Professor Ait Benamer Noureddine

Head of general surgery

Frantz-Fanon Hospital

Blida University Hospital Center