OBJECTIVES Swiss health care is relatively costly. In order better to understand the drivers of spending, this study analyses geographic variation in per capita consultation costs for ambulatory care. METHODS Small area and longitudinal analysis of costs of ambulatory services covered by compulsory health insurance, 2003-07. RESULTS The results show considerable geographic variation in per ...

Nursing leaders in ambulatory care need to objectively quantify patient intensity to balance patient care needs and nursing resources. In this three-part series the current literature on acuity/intensity tools will be reviewed, and the development of an Ambulatory Intensity System (AIS) to objectively quantify the nursing care will be described.

Background:  Elbow surgery is shared by several subspecialties. We were curious about the most common elbow surgeries and their corresponding diagnoses in the United States.   Methods:  We used the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) and the National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery (NSAS) data gathered in 2006-databases that together provide an estimate of all inpatient and ambulatory surgic...

BACKGROUND There are few data that describe the frequency, anesthetic type, provider, or disposition of children requiring outpatient anesthesia in the United States (US). Since the early 1980s, the frequency of ambulatory surgery has increased dramatically because of advances in medical technology and changes in payment arrangements. Our primary aim in this study was to quantify the number of ...

National inpatient and ambulatory surgery data were combined to examine changes over time in the location and amount of surgical care. The main pattern was a decline in the rate of inpatient operations that was outweighed by growth in ambulatory operations. However, the rate of inpatient operations did not decrease for patients age 65 years or over, despite the growth in ambulatory surgery. Oth...

OBJECTIVE to evaluate trends in rates of hospitalizations owing to ambulatory care sensitive conditions in the municipality of Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, from 2001 to 2011, and to assess correlation with the public health expendutures Family Health Strategy (FHS) population coverage. METHODS this was an ecological study using Ministry of Health secondary data; data were analyzed u...