Outpatient medical care in the practice of a pediatric surgeon

Introduction. In the number of countries, the ambulatory direction in the domain of medical care has been created as an alternative one to hospitalization. This is a type of round-o’clock hospitalization which is a modern trend in medical care where a patient is in the center of progress and modernization of healthcare.
Material and methods. The literature search was made in Scopus, MedLine, ELibrary, CyberLeninka, RSCI databases.
Results. Over the past 30 years, the proportion of outpatient surgeries in children has significantly increased in developed countries. Such modality of medical care is provided in the overwhelming majority of cases. In Russia, in 2010-2018, the number of ambulatory surgical interventions increased by 15%, but this figure is still lower than in European countries. In pediatric surgical practice, there is no good evidence-based support yet for performing most of common surgical procedures outpatiently, due to the lack of well-planned randomized trials. However, the world’s widespread experience allows to suggest that routine surgical interventions could be recommended for outpatient care. Inpatient replacement technologies reduce health care costs because the inpatient care is a more expensive type of medical services.
Conclusion. The outpatient medical care has to develop so as to transfer medical services from expensive hospital stay to much more economic and efficient one-day stay. At the same time, while developing the inpatient replacement technologies one must observe the basic principle – to ensure a high quality of medical care.