Same-day discharge bariatric surgery: A pilot experience from an Italian center

Abstract

Ambulatory bariatric surgery (BS) is a novel model of clinical care for patients with morbid obesity. The American College of Surgeons and the American Society for Metabolic and BS published clinical standards in BS that included ambulatory surgery in centers for low-acuity patients. Although ambulatory BS has been demonstrated to be safe and feasible, it has not yet been reported in Italy. It is hereby reported that this is the first experience of ambulatory BS in the Italian healthcare system. Two patients with morbid obesity underwent, respectively, a sleeve gastrectomy and an anastomosis gastric bypass. This pivotal experience was undertaken solely to evaluate the availability of logistics and the feasibility. Both patients were sent home within 10 hours of surgery. Admission, discharge protocol, and initial considerations are herein reported. The reduction of unnecessary hospital stays is clearly important and Same-day-discharge BS seems to have the potential to become one of the new models of offering this surgery.