Adverse outcomes in ambulatory anesthesia.

O VER the past two decades surgical patient care has undergone a major change. While in the past, most of the surgical procedures required inpatient admissions, now most of the performed operations, an estimated 65% of operations in North America, are completed in ambulatory settings. The improvement of anesthetic and surgical techniques, which resulted in an extremely good safety record of ambulatory procedures, was a prerequisite for this radical increase in the number of surgical procedures performed in ambulatory surgical units. The purpose of this review is to examine what outcome measures can be used in the assessment of the safety of ambulatory surgery and anesthesia, and to summarize the available published results regarding these outcome measures (Table I).