Ambulatory and inpatient procedures in the United States, 1995

This report presents estimates of surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States during 1995. 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). NHDS provides data on hospital inpatient care, and NSAS provides data on ambulatory surgery in hospitals and in freestanding ambulatory surgery centers. For NHDS, data were collected for approximately 263,000 discharges from 466 non-Federal short-stay hospitals (92 percent response rate). For NSAS, data were collected for approximately 122,000 ambulatory surgery discharges from 489 hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (80 percent response rate).

An estimated 69.2 million procedures were performed on 38.7 million discharges from hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers during 1995: 39.8 million procedures were for inpatients, and 29.4 million were for ambulatory patients. Females had more procedures than males, and the rate of procedures increased with age in ambulatory and inpatient settings. The leading procedures for ambulatory surgery patients and inpatients combined were endoscopy of small intestine, arteriography and angiocardiography, extraction of lens, and endoscopy of large intestine.