Exploring the National Healthcare Safety Network's Ambulatory Surgical Center Surveillance Report

Session Description: In recent years, ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) have become a rising force in the healthcare world as an efficient, cost-effective alternative to traditional inpatient surgery. In these standalone facilities, visit duration, number of staff, and number of procedure rooms are all heavily reduced compared to standard acute care hospitals. These factors, among others, hurt comparability to larger hospitals. To address this, the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), launched the Outpatient Procedure Component (OPC) in 2018. This component gives ASCs a tailored data reporting space that is uniquely theirs. Over the past eight years, OPC has gathered data on procedure volume, facility characteristics, surgical site infection (SSI) rates, and same day outcome measures (SDOMs). In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the data that have been reported to OPC, including trends over time and the current state of ASC reporting. These data can serve as a resource for multifaceted ASC staff, who often have to play many roles in their facility. We intend for this presentation to help guide ASCs in improving patient safety in a growing domain.

Benjamin O’Connell

Public Health Analyst, Leidos

Ben O'Connell, MPH, is a Public Health Analyst with Leidos, a contractor for the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), working on NHSN’s Acute Care Analytics Team within the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP). In this role, he is a subject matter expert on the analysis and surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in hospital acquired infections, the annual National and State Healthcare-Associated Infection Progress Report, Ventilator-Associated Events (VAE), and the Outpatient Procedure Component (OPC). Ben earned his Bachelor of Science in biomedical microbiology from Clemson University and his Master of Public Health in epidemiology from Emory University.

Irene Khan

Public Health Analyst/Epidemiologist, Ledios contractor for Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, National Healthcare Safety Network, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Irene Khan, MPH is a Public Health Analyst/Epidemiologist for the NHSN Methods and Analytics Team in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at CDC. Originally from the Washington D.C. area, Irene holds a B.S. in Biology and a Master’s of Public Health in Epidemiology from George Mason University. She has over nine years of laboratory experience working as a Molecular Biology Scientist and Genome Analyst for a private biotech company and more recent clinical experience working as a Surveillance Infection Preventionist for a prominent Healthcare system in Atlanta, GA. In her role at NHSN, she is primarily focused on the Outpatient Procedure Component and Surgical Site Infections.