ORX Proceedings 2013_Layout 1 12/6/13 11:23 AM Page 62
Are You Pushing the
Patient Safety Envelope?
Knowing when to operate is knowing when not to operate.
W
hy do some outpatient surgery centers push the boundaries of safe surgical care by operating on heavier, sicker and older patients? "Follow the money," says Ashish
Sinha, MD, PhD, assistant professor of anesthesiology
and perioperative
medicine at Drexel University College of
Medicine in Philadelphia, Pa. "It's the
driving force."
For example, says Dr. Sinha, if everyone
who qualified for weight-loss surgery —
patients with BMI over 40kg/m2 or BMI
over 35kg/m2 with comorbidities that would
n BALANCING ACT
Outpatient facilities
must be profitable
and safe for patients,
says Ashish Sinha,
MD, PhD.
respond to intervention — opted for surgery, facilities would be vying for 100
million potential patients.
Inpatient weight-loss surgery
costs about $25,000, explains Dr.
Sinha. But in the outpatient set-
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S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | D E C E M B E R 2013