Ambulatory and inpatient procedures in the United States, 1994

This report presents estimates of surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States during 1994. Data are presented by characteristics of patients, region of the country, and procedure categories for ambulatory and inpatient procedures separately and combined.

Estimates in this report are based on data collected from the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) and the National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery (NSAS). The NHDS provides data on hospital inpatient care, and the NSAS provides data on ambulatory surgery in hospitals and in freestanding ambulatory surgery centers. For the NHDS, data were collected for approximately 277,000 discharges from 478 non-Federal short-stay hospitals (93 percent response rate). For the NSAS, data were collected for about 118,000 ambulatory surgery discharges from 494 hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (80 percent response rate).

An estimated 68.4 million procedures were performed on 38.0 million discharges from hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers during 1994: 40.7 million procedures were for inpatients, and 27.7 million were for ambulatory patients. Females had more procedures than males did and the rate of procedures increased with age in both ambulatory and inpatient settings. The leading procedures for ambulatory surgery patients and inpatients combined were endoscopy of large intestine, arteriography and angiocardiography, endoscopy of small intestine, and extraction of lens.