Summary: The implementation of the week surgery in an orthopedic and urology ward and the assessment of its impact.
Introduction: The week surgery (WS) is one of the models organized according the intensity of care that allows the improvement of the appropriateness of the hospital admissions.
Aim: To describe the implementation and the impact of the WS on costs and levels of care.
Methods: The WS was gradually implemented in an orthopedic and urology ward. The planning of the surgeries was modified, the wards where patients would have been transferred during the week-end where identified, the nurses were supported by expert nurses to learn new skills and clinical pathways were implemented. The periods January-June 2012 and 2013 were compared identifying a set of indicators according to the health technology assessment method.
Results: The nurses were able to take vacations according to schedule; the cost of outsourcing services were reduced (-4.953 Euros) as well as those of consumables. The nursing care could be guaranteed employing less (-5) full-time nurses; the global clinical performance of the ward did not vary. Unfortunately several urology patients could not be discharged during the week-ends.
Conclusions: A good planning of the surgeries according to the patients' length of staying, together with interventions to increase the staff-skill mix, and the clinical pathways allowed an effective and efficient implementation of the WS model without jeopardizing patients' safety.