Chapter 3 Patient selection and preparation for day surgical procedures
Jan Jakobsson
• The day case patient must be discharged from hospital care within hours after the end of anaesthesia; thus special attention must be given to proper patient selection, preparation, and information.
• All patients scheduled for day case anaesthesia should be assessed preoperatively and reviewed for risk factors prior to the start of anaesthesia.
• Preoperative questionnaires that can be filled in by the patient before coming to hospital are often of great help and can help facilitate the assessment process.
• Information (oral and, whenever feasible, written) regarding the anaesthesia administered and the postoperative course including pain management should be provided and signed by responsible anaesthetist.
• Patients should give informed consent.
• Routine preoperative testing is not mandatory in the typical case on ASA scale 1–2 patients; preoperative investigations and tests should be performed on an individual basis on the information retrieved during the preoperative assessment.
• Preparation and information should be provided well in advance in order to avoid late cancellation or delays.
• Planning of the “list for the day” should be done on the basis of preoperative information about the patient, taking into account the type of procedure and eventual special needs (e.g. position, equipment, etc.).
• Well-informed and motivated patients help to facilitate rapid patient turnover.
Part of the Oxford Anaesthesia Library, this practical online reference provides an overview of the scope of day surgical anaesthesia and features simple and ready-to-use suggestions for the selection of drugs, techniques and protocols to follow in everyday day-case-surgical clinical practice.
Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up to date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulations. The authors and the publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this work.
