The unfortunate incidents leading to the death of Joan Rivers have cast a pall over the ASC industry. Normally the model for healthcare safety and reliability, the comedienne's death as the result of an ASC-based procedure has called the industry's reputation into question — whether justified or not.
While Ms. Rivers' death occurred several months ago, The Washington Post and Kaiser Health News ran a Dec. 15 article on the safety of the ASC industry, the publication of which begs the question: How long will the scrutiny last?
The joint Post-KHN article focuses on the safety record, growth rate, infection rate and migration of complex procedures to the ASC setting in the industry.
Of course, varying stakeholders have different views on the success and failures of the industry, but Ms. Rivers' death has people still asking many questions for which they wouldn't normally demand answers. While the ASC industry has data to back up its claims to low-cost and high-quality care, the public may still remain skeptical.
Despite the excellent safety record, the fact that the ASC industry is late to the regulatory game in some respects — centralized quality data collection, for instance — has the potential to be damaging in the aftermath of a highly publicized safety incident.
"There's not much known about what happens about what happens within the walls of [ASCs] by regulators or by the public," said Lisa McGiffert, director of Safe Patient Project, in the report.
"Anytime there is a major or minor accident, people begin to question the safety record," said David Shapiro, a former ASCA president, in the report. "We have an exceptional success rate."
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