- Center on Health Equity & Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
Analyzing Patient Safety in Outpatient Settings
Healthcare is changing due to a combination of technological improvements and rising costs. For instance, more than half of surgical procedures now take place in an outpatient environment, but, as with many things in healthcare, there isn’t a lot of transparency. Today on Managed Care Cast, we speak with Michael Abrams, managing partner of Numerof & Associates, about what we know about patient safety in outpatient settings.
Healthcare is changing due to a combination of technological improvements and rising costs. For instance, more than half of surgical procedures now take place in an outpatient environment, but, as with many things in healthcare, there isn’t a lot of transparency. Today on Managed Care Cast, we speak with Michael Abrams, managing partner of Numerof & Associates, about patient safety and outpatient settings.
The Leapfrog Group recently released a report that showed there are gaps in education, training, and national certifications of clinicians in ambulatory surgical centers, or ASCs, and hospital outpatient departments and patients at both locations may experience gaps in communication before and after procedures. However, ambulatory surgical centers lag behind hospital outpatient departments in implementing best practices for patient safety. For instance, few ASCs have an antimicrobial stewardship program in place, according to Leapfrog. And yet, patients tend to give higher patient experience ratings to ASCs.
Listen above or through one of these podcast services:
ACA Dependent Coverage Extension and Young Adults’ Substance-Associated ED Visits
September 15th 2025This study examines the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on substance-associated emergency department (ED) visits among young adults, revealing reduced alcohol-associated visits but unchanged opioid-associated visits.
Read More
AI in Health Care: Balancing Governance, Innovation, and Trust
September 2nd 2025In this conversation with Reuben Daniel, associate vice president of artificial intelligence at UPMC Health Plan, we dive into how UPMC Health Plan builds trust with providers and members, discuss challenges of scaling AI effectively, and hear about concrete examples of AI's positive impact.
Listen
