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.
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