A nationwide study found that ASCs treat 15% more patients in socially vulnerable areas for cardiac interventions compared with hospital outpatient departments.
According to a May 1 news release from the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions, ASCs could be an important key in closing healthcare gaps in vulnerable populations.
Here are five other takeaways from the study:
1. The study was presented at the SCAI 2025 Scientific Sessions in Washington, D.C. It evaluated data from more than 400,000 Medicare patients, specifically looking at patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention in ASCs and the outcomes at 30 days.
2. Among 408,060 patients who underwent outpatient PCI from 2020 to 2022, 7,494 (1.8%) were in ASCs and 400,566 (98.2%) were in HOPDs.
3. Patients treated in ASCs were more often in the Southern region of the U.S. and in socially vulnerable areas (36.6% vs. 21.9%), and fewer patients underwent multivessel PCI (3% vs. 5.9%).
4. At 30 days, adverse events such as mortality, stroke, pericardial effusion and tamponade, and access-site bleeding were comparable between groups. Patients treated in the outpatient hospital setting had higher rates of all-cause hospitalization and acute myocardial infarction, while ASC patients had a higher rate of repeat PCI.
5. “Patients are drawn to care at ASCs due to the lower costs and greater convenience, which correlates to the shift we’re seeing in PCIs being done at ASCs. We’re also seeing a trend of physicians thoughtfully selecting patients to undergo PCIs in this setting — something we anticipate will increase in the future,” said Katerina Dangas, MD, a research fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and lead author of the study. “Looking forward, participation in national registries, such as the American College of Cardiology’s Cardiovascular ASC Registry suite, will be an important step toward establishing national quality benchmarks tailored to the risk profile of patients treated in the ASC setting.”
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