From May 13th to 15th, the 15th International Congress on Ambulatory Surgery was held in Oslo, Norway. Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of Sun Yat-sen University was invited to represent Chinese ophthalmology at the conference and delivered a special report. Professor Li Tao, Assistant Director of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, presented on "Development and Breakthroughs in Innovation-Driven Ophthalmic Ambulatory Surgery Model," sharing the "Chinese" experience in ophthalmic ambulatory surgery with international colleagues.
Professor Li Tao, Assistant Director of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, presenting at the conference
Pioneered the establishment of a “Specialty Hospital with Exemplary Ambulatory Surgeries”
With the aging population and socio-economic development, people’s demand for eye care has significantly increased. To implement the national guidelines for promoting high-quality development in public hospitals and to effectively address the issues of difficult and expensive medical access for patients, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center has actively responded to the national call. Closely aligning with the trend of minimally invasive ophthalmic surgery and driven by innovations in both management mechanism and technology, in 2011, the Center pioneered the trial of ambulatory surgeries in the cataract department. This initiative broke through the bottlenecks of traditional inpatient surgical models, establishing a more comprehensive diagnosis and treatment process as well as management standards for ambulatory surgery, which have since been widely promoted across various subspecialties.
On November 16, 2016, the Health News featured a headline on the front page highlighting Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center's ambulatory surgery model as a benchmark for medical reform in China
Over 12 years of development, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center has basically achieved full ambulatory surgery services. The ambulatory surgery rate has reached 93.83%, the average inpatient cost per patient has decreased by approximately 15% compared to the cost before the implementation of ambulatory surgeries, and the average preoperative waiting time has significantly reduced from one month to just three days, alleviating multiple aspects of the patients' medical burdens. Through years of continuous optimization of diagnostic and treatment processes and service quality, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center has gradually developed a medical quality management system characterized by comprehensive ambulatory surgeries and an integrated full-chain service model for medical and nursing care, achieving leapfrog improvements in both medical quality and service capabilities.
Day ward optimized for ophthalmic care
As an important means to change the service model and improve service efficiency, the ophthalmic ambulatory surgery model has received widespread recognition and attention from both the government and society. Nearly a hundred organizations have visited Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center to exchange ideas, bringing the concepts, procedures, and standards of ophthalmic ambulatory surgery to various specialties in multiple regions across the country.
On the international stage, China rises to prominence and shares ophthalmic solutions
At this conference, Professor Li Tao introduced the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center’s experiences and ideas in the implementation of ophthalmic ambulatory surgery to international colleagues. He focused on improving medical service efficiency, controlling medical quality, and how ambulatory surgery can feed back into technological innovation. The presentation sparked lively discussions and received full recognition from the attending experts. This contribution of Chinese experience and ophthalmic solutions aimed to jointly promote the global development of ambulatory surgery and continuously enhance the supply and efficiency of medical services.
Professor Li Tao (fourth from the right) with representatives from various countries at the conference
As the Vice President unit of the Ambulatory Medical Economics and Administration Branch of the China Health Economics Association, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center will continue to actively engage in exchanges and cooperation with domestic and international colleagues aiming to replicate and promote the Zhongshan Ophthalmic experience in ambulatory surgery on a larger scale. High-level external exchanges and cooperation will help drive the implementation of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center's high-quality development strategies, specifically the "123 Overall Deployment" and the "1411 Strategy," advancing towards the goal of "building a world-class ophthalmic center."
