Preanesthesia Evaluation and Testing

Abstract

The explosive growth of ambulatory surgical programs has been one of the most formidable changes in the practice of medicine in the past 30 years. Few other events have affected so many patients in such a fundamental fashion. It has been estimated that approximately more than 80% of all surgical procedures performed in the United States are now being done on an ambulatory basis. Ambulatory surgery continues to diffuse to include a wider range of procedures, involving higher risk patients in more diverse environments increasingly removed from the traditional hospital setting.