Editor's Note The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on January 9 announced a new “Safe Transitions Toolkit” for clinical staff working in ambulatory care settings. The toolkit is designed to help staff actively engage patients and their care partners to prevent errors during care transitions. The toolkit includes…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) have been collaborating since late 2015 on a 3-year project titled, “Adaptation & Dissemination of Outpatient Infection Prevention (ADOPT).” The goal of the project is to adapt, enhance, and disseminated current CDC guidance on infection prevention and…

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On November 1, 2017, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its final rule for the 2018 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System/ASC Payment System and Quality Reporting Programs. In summary, several ambulatory surgery center (ASC) measures (ASC-1 to ASC-14) are unaffected, except that three measures (ASC-5, -6,…

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Editor's Note Under a bill approved unanimously December 5 by the Florida Senate Health Policy Committee, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) could treat patients overnight, the December 6 WUSF News reports. Before approving the bill (SB 250), sponsored by Sen Greg Steube (R-Sarasota), the committee agreed to an amendment requiring the…

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Editor's Note Most patients who had cataract surgery from 2001 to 2014 did so at ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) compared with hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs), this study finds. In this analysis of 369,320 patients who had 531,325 cataract surgeries, the proportion performed at ASCs increased from 43.6% in 2001 to…

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Editor's Note National data show a large shift in cataract surgeries from hospitals to less expensive ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), where care can be delivered faster and closer to home, this study finds. From 2001 to 2014, the proportion of cataract surgeries performed at ASCs increased steadily from 43.6% to…

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Peer review is a hot topic in the quality arena as many ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) strive to create meaningful and sustainable evaluation of their providers. “As a surveyor, I can tell you peer review trips everybody up,” says Ann Geier, MS, RN, CNOR, CASC, chief nursing officer of Surgical…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on November 1 announced it will update the hospital outpatient prospective payment system rates by 1.35%. The final rule also removes total knee arthroplasty from the inpatient only list along with five other procedures and adds one procedure to the…

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Editor's Note The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAHC) announced on November 2 that it has developed a new Orthopaedic Certification program for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). After an ASC achieves overall accreditation, it can acquire the Orthopaedic Certification to demonstrate excellence in the specialty of orthopaedics by meeting…

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Editor's Note Standardizing clinical processes for outpatient hernia repairs reduced postoperative pain and unplanned returns to the emergency department (ED), finds this study presented October 23 at the American College of Surgeons 2017 Clinical Congress in San Diego. Researchers developed a standardized eight-step protocol that incorporated best practices and enhanced…

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