Ambulatory and inpatient procedures in the United States, 1996

This report presents estimates of surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States during 1996. 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 282,000 discharges from 480 non-Federal short-stay hospitals (95 percent response rate). For NSAS, data were collected for approximately 125,000 ambulatory surgery discharges from 488 hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (81 percent response rate).

An estimated 71.9 million procedures were performed on 39.9 million discharges from hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers during 1996: 40.4 million procedures were for inpatients, and 31.5 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 arteriography and angiocardiography, endoscopy of small intestine, endoscopy of large intestine, and extraction of lens.