Planning, building and operating a free-standing privately-owned day theatre complex: a nine year experience

Abstract

Building a privately-owned day surgery complex presents a unique challenge; how to marry the seemingly opposite requirements of high medical standards and reasonable profitability. Patient and doctor convenience are both served by locating the centre at the site of the surgeon's consulting rooms, as the patient may attend properly prepared, and have consultation and surgery disposed of on the same day. The ideal usage of such a complex is for high volume, rapid turnover cases, involving mainly healthy patients. Correction of planning mistakes can be ruinously expensive, and not only financially. Therefore the importance of critical analysis and thorough pre-planning cannot be over-emphasized. Safety is a key word. All protocols, whether they concern building, provision of equipment, surgical, anaesthetic or nursing practices, must have safety built in to their methodology. This specifically includes backup systems, and following that, simplicity, efficiency, and flexibility. It will be rewarded by significant savings in capital expenditure, time, running efficiency, job satisfaction and above all, patient satisfaction with the services provided.