Outpatient Surgery Magazine recently posted a very interesting article entitled “Yes, You Can Do Same-Day Hips.” In this article, written by Christopher McClellan, DO and Dave Berheimer, BSN, CRNA, you can read about how one particular surgical center has been experimenting with a same-day total joint replacement program. They have been performing knee, hip, shoulder and ankle replacement surgeries as outpatient procedures for the past two years.
They report that of all these surgical procedures, those receiving hip replacement have fared the best – and by a landslide. They have performed 30 hip replacements in the last two years and state that on average, their patients leave the ASC approximately 3 hours after receiving the 40-minute procedure. These patients have reported low pain levels, even after a grueling round of physical therapy and their overall satisfaction rates are very high.
This is yet another way that ambulatory surgical centers are proving more cost-effective that traditional hospital settings, where patients typically stay and average of 3 days following the surgery. You can learn more by reading the article.
As we all know, tissue damage from hypoxic ischemic injury during a heart attack leads to ongoing problems, like congestive heart failure. Once heart muscle is damaged, neighboring healthy tissue will become damaged too, due to the “bystander effect.” This can turn what might be relatively minor heart damage into major, life-threatening damage. So the question becomes: is it possible to stop this “bystander effect” in its tracks?
With more than 35 new ASCs opening in the first quarter of 2018, business continues to boom for many ambulatory surgery centers across the nation. But, some states are more favorable than others when it comes to where ASC doctors choose to practice medicine.
Those in the surgical arena are likely aware of the recent propofol shortage. This resulted when Teva Pharmaceuticals, which supplied approximately 40% of the propofol used in the U.S. announced that they would no longer produce the drug. This decision came after they were ordered to pay $356 million to a patient who developed Hepatitis C after his doctor reused the same single-use vial on several different patients. You can read about that controversial decision as well as the resultant drug shortage at the in this article at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Because the propofol vials are designed for single use only, disposing of unused medication led to a great deal of waste, particularly in ambulatory surgical centers where surgeries tend to be of a shorter duration and less of the drug is therefore needed. David Bernard, of Outpatient Surgery Magazine, reports that in response to this problem, German drug manufacturer Fresenius Kabi is now offering Diprivan, its injectable emulsion of propofol, in 10mL vials, the smallest dosage of single-use vial ever created. In addition to eliminating waste, this smaller dosage vial is likely to reduce the chances of patients being infected due to reuse.
