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Increased use of freestanding ASCs found for surgical care of pediatric fractures
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Results of this study showed an increase in the number of pediatric patients who received operative treatment for fractures at outpatient centers during a 10-year period and revealed a significant increase in the number of these patients treated at freestanding ambulatory surgery centers compared with hospital outpatient centers.
Researchers conducted an epidemiologic study of 1996 to 2006 data from the National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery on 659,648 pediatric patients who underwent orthopedic surgery for at outpatient facilities. Orthopedics surgeries were identified with the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification.
Results showed an 88% increase in the number of pediatric patients who underwent surgery for fracture at outpatient centers during the 10-year period studied. In addition, investigators found 3% of pediatric patients in 1996 were surgically treated for fracture at a free-standing ambulatory surgery center. By 2006, this figure had increased to 21%. By comparison, 10% of all outpatient pediatric patients were treated at hospital outpatient facilities in 1996 and this figure increased to 32% in 2006.
“The increase in the volume of pediatric fracture care provided at freestanding ambulatory surgery centers significantly outpaced all pediatric orthopedic volume,” the authors wrote.
Overall, there was an increase in the proportion of open fracture care given to pediatric patients at freestanding ambulatory surgery centers from 1996 to 2006 with rates of 25% to 51%, respectively. The proportion of percutaneous fracture surgery performed at these centers also increased within the 10 years studied from 7% to 23%.
In addition, the proportion of lower-extremity fractures managed at free-standing centers significantly increased from 1996 to 2006 (from 5% to 38%) compared with rates at hospital-associated outpatient surgery centers, which remained stable, according to researchers.
“This study showed the expanding role of freestanding ambulatory surgery centers in the surgical treatment of pediatric fractures based on data from the only national ambulatory surgery database in the United States. The proportion of open and percutaneous treatment vs. closed reduction of fractures in these facilities also greatly increased,” the authors wrote. ‒ by Monica Jaramillo
Disclosures: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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