During the 1990s one strategy at the Department of Surgery, University Hospital, Lund, has been organize elective and acute surgical care in separate units. Short-stay surgery and speciality surgery have been planned in the same way. The merger between the Lund department and the Department of Surgery at the nearby district hospital of Landskrona on January 1, 1996, made it possible to fully carry through this strategy. He we report the prosperous effects of this new organization as they come out in efficiency, cost-effectiveness and quality of care, during the period 1996±1997 compared with 1995, the year before the re-organization.