Planning and decision making for ambulatory surgery.

There has been rapid growth in the number of ambulatory surgical centers in the United States over the past few years. Yet little research has been done to assist community health planners and surgeons in decision making and planning for ambulatory surgery. In this paper, an analytical framework is developed to assist surgeons in deciding whether to perform a procedure on a ambulatory or an inpatient basis. The Hospital Discharge Survey data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics are also analyzed to investigate their applicability in this analytical framework as well as to aid planners in developing community-wide ambulatory surgery projections. In spite of the limitations on the available data, the models developed here suggest possible future avenues for planning ambulatory surgeries.