August is National ASC Month!  It is the time of the year

to celebrate all that make Ambulatory Surgery Centers

unique and benefical in the delivery of Healthcare.  Usually

the education provided on the benefits of ASC's lies in the

pricing and efficiency.  ASC's are more cost effective to

patients.  Additionally, are more cost efficient to Physicians

who can in often times perform more cases in an ASC setting

than in a hospital setting due to having set block time and not

getting "bumped" in the OR for more urgent hospital cases.

For this year's National ASC Month, it seemed fitting to discuss the benefit of ASC's to patients during the COVID pandemic.

Currently, Florida is in a COVID surge with 77,944 COVID cases as of today and expected to hit 105,594 in 3 weeks (CDC, 2021).  Hospitals are feeling the effect of the surge as patients fill the inpatient wards, ICU and Emergency Rooms.  Patients with less acute "elective" procedural needs are being delayed either voluntarily or involuntarily by their physician or healthcare facility.  These "elective" procedures can include tonsilectomies, trigger finger release, spinal injections for the management of pain, hysterectomies, cataract surgery and so forth. 

The empathesis on "elective" stems from the State of Florida, Executive Order Number 20-72, in which the order defined all "non-essential" elective medical and surgical procedures to be defined as "medically unnecessary, non-urgent or non-emergency procedure or surgery which, if delayed, does not place a patient's immediate health, safety, or well-being at risk, or will, if delayed, not contribute to the worsening of a serious or life-threatening medical condition."

Many patients held off on these "elective" procedures in 2020 and, unfortunately, for many the delay continues now in 2021.

ASC's have become a benefit during COVID for numerous reasons including:

•   ASC's can act as an isolation area for same-day surgery patients from exposure to sick patients in a   
     hospital setting including COVID patients.
  
  
•   ASC's can serve as back-up facilities to Hospitals as noted by the CMS Hospital Without Walls Initiative to
     increase Hospital Capacity in the mist of patient surges during COVID.
  
  
•   ASC's can provide the "elective" procedures on patients whose care otherwise would be delayed in a hospital   

        setting due to surge census.

Ambulatory Surgery Center's patient value has grown in the last 20 years as more hospitals begin to add their own ASC's to their networks.  As we take the month of August to acknowledge and appreciate ASC's as a vital role in the delivery of heathcare, take time to also acknowledge the evolving role ASC's took during the COVID pandemic from same-day surgery centers to 24-hour hospital overflow facilities.

References:

CDC (2021).  COVID Data Tracker; United States Forecasting.  Retrieved August 2, 2021 from https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#forecasting_weeklycases

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