Ambulatory surgery in France - development and international comparison

Ambulatory surgery in France was under constraining rules since 1992. In 19 98, there were 7 600 ambulatory stations which allowed 2 700 000 ambulatory procedures in a year. French Association for Ambulatory Surgery and Intern ational Association for Ambulatory Surgery adopted a limited list of 18 ref erence procedures to launch a survey on the prevalence of ambulatory surger y. The prevalence rate of ambulatory procedures among this list raised from 35.2% to 39.3% in 1999. This rate was the same in public and private healt h institutions. Ambulatory practice was increasing more than the inpatient procedures. Intercountry comparisons pointed out France as the tenth countr y for ambulatory prevalence among 13 members of Organization for Economic C ooperation and Development. This underlined the fact that there was probabl y a growth potential for ambulatory surgery in France.