This report, "Ambulatory and Inpatient Procedures in the United States, 1995," presents estimates of surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States. Data are presented by characteristics of patients, region of the country, and procedure categories for ambulatory and inpatient procedures separately and combined. This report combines data collected from the 1995 National Hospital Discharge Survey and the 1995 National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery.

Data Highlights:
In 1995 an estimated 69.2 million procedures were performed on 38.7 million discharges from hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers, 39.8 million procedures were for inpatients and 29.4 million procedures were for ambulatory patients.
Females had higher utilization rates in both ambulatory and inpatient settings. Among inpatients, females had 46 percent higher rates of procedures than males had. Obstetrical procedures, which account for 26 percent of the inpatient procedures for females, were a major reason for their higher rates. However, females also had a 23 percent higher rate of ambulatory surgery procedures, which included almost no obstetrical procedures.
The leading surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed on ambulatory patients and inpatients combined were endoscopy of small intestine, arteriography and angiocardiography, extraction of lens, and endoscopy of large intestine. These four procedures were done more than 2 million times in 1995.

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007