A Positive Trend
It used to be that 30 or even 40 years ago all surgery that needed to be done was done so in hospitals. You had to wait for days, weeks even months at a time for an appointment – even if it was something really serious. Hospitals might seem like a really good fit for your needs, and perhaps they are for certain procedures, but ambulatory centers are becoming more and more popular because they give us back something that we cannot afford to lose sometimes and that is time. Time to heal and stay in the hospital for recuperation, time for recovery out of the hospital, etc. If time is something you cannot afford to lose, maybe an ambulatory surgery center is the frontier healthcare option you always needed. Ambulatory surgery centers serve a variety of benefits such as convenience, cost efficiency to you the patient and being able to have the ability as a doctor or surgeon to take control of surgical practices. Beyond just these benefits, you also have to consider that in the healthcare industry these ambulatory centers give out over 100,000 jobs for fulltime positions! Not only does this mean it’s great for the economy, but it helps local people get local jobs as well.
What Ambulatory Surgery Centers Are Not
Since you might be seeing a lot of positives and benefits coming from these centers, one would assume that they do everything. Not true. In fact, like most centers like these, they have to go by certain practices and guidelines – for your safety and their own. It’s important to realize that these Ambulatory Surgery Centers are not health clinics. You can’t just visit one and expect to be served. Instead, you have to have already been seen by your own private health provider. For example, companies like UPMC emergency centers are centers that you can just go in and see a doctor for whatever may be ailing you – you do not need to see another provider beforehand. But, with an Ambulatory Surgery Center you have to have been seen by a professional who then refers you to the center and you have to have it noted on your records that you selected surgery for your specific treatment of action for your specific condition. Any and all Ambulatory Surgery Centers you visit will have at least one private operating room as well as equipment for procedures. In fact, one operating room per center is mandatory.
Safety Regulations
To further reiterate how safe these Ambulatory Surgery Centers really are I thought I would also mention the rigorous inspections each center is put through for compliance and safety issues. Like other health care facility such as hospitals, the Ambulatory Surgery Centers are evaluated on a variety of quality standards. This should give you peace of mind when choosing an Ambulatory Surgery Center for your condition and procedure. Also, most states in the US require a license for operation. While many of the other centers also get additional accreditation via organizations like the AAAHC. Equipment and tools are also highly regarded and go through numerous inspection tests to make sure they work properly, are clean, up to date, etc.
Satisfaction Rates and Quality Care
One of the biggest earmarks that comes with a center like this one is patient satisfaction and an overwhelmingly amount of patients have said they had a 92% satisfaction rate when working with an ambulatory surgery center. That’s pretty amazing! What’s even more amazing is that these centers are said to deliver equal or better care and quality than that of another healthcare facility such as hospitals. Over all, these centers are a beneficial option when it comes to specific procedures and treatments.
