The report, Ambulatory Surgery in the United States, 2006, revealed that surgery in freestanding ASCs accounts for nearly 43 percent of all outpatient surgery, and a number of other interesting statistics, including:
▪ In 2006, an estimated 57.1 million surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed during 34.7 million ambulatory surgery visits. The 34.7 million ambulatory surgery visits accounted for about 61.6 percent of the combined total of ambulatory surgery visits and inpatient discharges with surgical and nonsurgical procedures (56.4 million). An estimated 19.9 million (57.2 percent) of the ambulatory surgery visits occurred in hospitals and 14.9 million (42.8 percent) occurred in freestanding ASCs.
▪ Average times for surgical visits were higher for ambulatory surgery visits to hospital-based ASCs (61.7 minutes) than for visits to freestanding ASCs (43.2 minutes) for the amount of time spent in the operating room; the amount of time spent in surgery (34.2 minutes compared with 25.1 minutes), the amount of time spent in the postoperative recovery room (79.0 minutes compared with 53.1 minutes) and overall time (146.6 minutes compared with 97.7 minutes).
▪ Frequently performed procedures on ambulatory patients (all patients) included endoscopy of large intestine (5.8 million), endoscopy of the small intestine (3.5 million), extraction of lens (3.1 million), injection of agent into spinal canal (2.7 million), and insertion of prosthetic lens (2.6 million).
▪ Females had more ambulatory surgery visits (20.0 million) than males (14.7 million).
▪ The majority of visits had only one or two procedures performed (56.3 percent and 28.5 percent, respectively), while 2.6 percent had five or more procedures performed.
▪ Ambulatory procedures frequently performed on children under 15 years included myringotomy with insertion of tube (1.2 million), tonsillectomy with or without adenoidectomy (530,000) and adenoidectomy without tonsillectomy (132,000).
▪ Frequent ambulatory procedures for patients 15–44 years of age were endoscopy of large intestine (779,000), endoscopy of small intestine (770,000), injection of agent into spinal canal (745,000), injection or infusion of therapeutic or prophylactic substance (482,000) and operations on muscle, tendon, facia, and bursa (425,000).
▪ Ambulatory surgery procedures commonly performed on patients 45–64 years of age were endoscopy of large intestine (2.9 million), endoscopy of small intestine (1.4 million), injection of agent into spinal canal (1.1 million), endoscopic polypectomy of the large intestine (781,000) and extraction of lens (611,000).
▪ For patients 65–74 years of age, the most frequent procedures were endoscopy of large intestine (1.2 million), extraction of lens (1.1 million), insertion of lens (923,000), endoscopy of small intestine (655,000), and endoscopic polypectomy of the large intestine (461,000).
▪ For patients 75 years of age or over, the most frequent procedures were extraction of lens (1.3 million), insertion of lens (1.1 million), endoscopy of large intestine (825,000), endoscopy of small intestine (551,000) and injection of agent into spinal canal (450,000).
▪ General anesthesia was provided in 30.7 percent of ambulatory surgery visits, 20.8 percent received anesthesia only intravenously and 20.8 percent received multiple types of anesthesia.
View Ambulatory Surgery in the United States, 2006 (pdf).
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