OBJECTIVES : In the past few years development of one-day surgery in Hungary has been significant, although the increasing of the market share of this type of treatment probably could not have been realized at the same way throughout this country. The aim of the research is to assess the routes of the patients in one-day surgery treatments in Hungary.

METHODS : The database of the research consisted all publicly financed one-day surgery case numbers between 2010-2017, the patients’ places of residence related to their counties and regions, the location and financing identification numbers of health care institutes as well. The database was provided by the National Health Insurance Fund of Hungary.

RESULTS : During the examined period there were 1,627,598 public financed one-day surgery cases in Hungary. Therefrom 78% one-day surgery cases were provided within the same county as the patient’s county of residence. Mostly the highest rates were in those counties which have clinical centres (Baranya county: 92%, Csongrád county 95%, Hajdú-Bihar county 96%, and Budapest 85%). Those cases which were not provided at the patients’ county of residence (356,958 cases), were accomplished mostly at Budapest (market share: 46%). On the other hand, this rate was 14% in Pest county, 4% in Baranya county, 7% in Csongrád county and 6% in Hajdú-Bihar county. Only 5% of patients of Central Transdanubia region were treated outside of the region (22,742 cases), at the same time, 22% of patients of Northern Hungary went outside of the region for one-day surgery interventions (32,637 cases). Mostly their one-day surgery interventions were carried out in Budapest (13,212 cases).

CONCLUSIONS : We could verify that, most of the public financed one-day surgery interventions were carried out in the same region as the patients’ region of residence, although there were regional differences in this regard.