BACKGROUND Caudal epidural block (CEB) has become increasingly important for pediatric analgesia in recent years. However, data regarding CEB in adult ambulatory surgery are scarce. The aim of this study was to verify whether CEB could be applied as a simple, safe and economic method of anesthesia for adult patients undergoing minor gynecologic procedures (MGP). METHODS One hundred and sevent...

Little is known about the ability of incentives to influence decisions by physicians regarding choices of settings for care delivery. In the context of outpatient procedural care, the emergence of freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) as alternatives to hospital-based outpatient departments (HOPDs) creates a unique opportunity to study this question. We advance a model where physicians...

BACKGROUND Control of surgical site infections (SSI) is imperative for the safety of our patients. As orthopedic surgeons we strive to have the lowest infection rate possible for all our surgical procedures. this study evaluates the effects of a simple outpatient peri-operative patient cleaning protocol (The Steiros Algorithm(®) Outpatient Surgery Protocol) on SSI rates. METHODS We retrospect...

Stimulated by the economic constraints in developing countries, we have been interested in changes in the therapeutic approaches to hematologic malignancies that may result in both simplification and reduction of costs.1-4 One of the changes that has been shown to result in diminished costs of the modern effective therapeutic regimens is the completion of the procedures on an outpatient basis. ...

data about the prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases, as one of the most important categories of epidemiological data, is used for interpreting health status of communities. this study aims to calculate the prevalence of outpatient diseases through the characterization of outpatient prescriptions. the data used in this study is collected from 1412 prescriptions for various ty...

Outpatient commitment (OPC), a major form of involuntary community-based treatment, has evolved in the United States on a state-by-state basis amidst a storm of controversy. The polarizing debate that has gone on intensely about OPC for the last two decades has all too often been devoid of data. This article reviews the various arguments pro and con about OPC, and then examines the research on ...

For more than three decades, Congress has struggled with potential financial conflicts of interest when physicians share in financial gain from nonprofessional services. This study asks the question: Are physicians who are leading referrers to physician-owned ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) more likely to send Medicaid patients to hospital outpatient clinics than other patients? The compariso...

PURPOSE The cost implications associated with offloading outpatient surgery from hospitals to ambulatory surgery centers and the physician office remain poorly defined. Therefore, we determined whether payments for outpatient surgery vary by location of care. MATERIALS AND METHODS Using national Medicare claims from 1998 to 2006, we identified elderly patients who underwent 1 of 22 common out...

BACKGROUND Laboratory testing results are often used to monitor influenza illness in populations, but results may not be representative of illness burden and distribution, especially in populations that are geographically, socioeconomically, and racially/ethnically diverse. OBJECTIVES Descriptive epidemiology and chi-square analyses using demographic, geographic, and medical condition prevale...