Patient Selection and Anesthesiology in the Ambulatory Surgical Center

Abstract

The administration of an anesthetic in an outpatient surgical unit embodies the same tenets of safe practice as would apply in a hospital operating room. The fact that outpatient surgery has become known as “fast surgery” should not imply a lack of the highest standards of safety. Special considerations that ensure proper patient selection must be adhered to strictly. It is also important to have anesthesiologists who want to work at the sometimes fast pace of the outpatient unit. This chapter will describe how anesthesia techniques have evolved in our unit over the past nine years.