As more and more routine plastic surgery procedures move from the hospital to outpatient surgery facilities, plastic surgeons must be aware of the risk factors for life-threatening events that might occur in this setting. This awareness includes recognition of the signs and symptoms and the management of a rare but life-threatening condition, malignant hyperthermia. This article reviews the cur...

In today's evolving health care field, outpatient procedures are becoming more commonplace. Many patients with suprapubic catheters are now being seen in outpatient or home care settings. Addressing the educational needs of patients, family members, and nursing staff is now more important than ever for successful patient suprapubic catheter management. A basic understanding of how these cathete...

OBJECTIVES The objectives of this study were twofold: 1) to evaluate the construct validity of the Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (TSQM v. II) using structural equation modeling (SEM); and 2) to assess its concurrent validity using medication adherence criteria. METHODS Pharmacy patients filling a new medication prescription (n = 342) were recruited from 14 Michigan pharm...

INTRODUCTION Guidelines for inpatient admission after pediatric tonsillectomy have been proposed to improve the safety of this procedure. This study examined the association between performing adenotonsillectomy in an inpatient setting and acute care revisits within 30 days among children enrolled in a Medicaid Accountable Care Organization in Ohio. METHODS The Accountable Care Organization's...

Introduction. For pulmonary vein isolation in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), some centers use the double transseptal puncture technique for catheter access in order to facilitate catheter manipulation within the left atrium. However, no safety data has so far been published using this approach. Method. 269 ablation procedures were performed in 243 patients (mean age 56.6 ± 9.3 years, 7...

Medicare's facility payment rates for an ambulatory surgical procedure differ among settings. These differences raise questions about how Medicare should pay for the same procedure in various settings. In exploring this issue, it is important to look at whether the type of patients treated varies by setting. The recent growth in specialty facilities offers another reason to analyze the mix of p...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The increasing number of ambulatory procedures requires anesthetic methods allowing patients to be discharged soon after surgery completion. Currently, anorectal procedures are performed in inpatient settings. This study aimed at evaluating the feasibility of performing these procedures in outpatient settings with low hypobaric bupivacaine doses. METHODS Participated...

Ambulatory surgery encompasses the majority of surgical procedures performed in the United States. The number of procedures performed on an ambulatory basis has increased owing to improvements in surgical technology, anesthetic techniques, and pharmacology—specifically analgesic agents. The latter is important as there is an increasing trend of performing more painful procedures on an outpatien...

Many new, minimally invasive interventional radiology procedures are now viable alternatives to traditional invasive therapy. These interventional radiological procedures can be performed in the outpatient setting and the overall cost to the patient may be less in the long run. Radiofrequency and Laser ablation techniques are now widely used and rapidly expanding technologies in the interventio...

Methods The MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters (CCAE) data from Truven Health Analytics contains annual beneficiary enrollment information and inpatient admissions, outpatient encounters, and outpatient pharmacy dispensing claims from approximately 100 employee-sponsored private insurance plans. The 2012 CCAE contains 1.1 billion inpatient and outpatient claims records for 53 million e...