Outpatient care, also known as ambulatory care, refers to any healthcare consultation, procedure, treatment, or other service that is administered without an overnight stay in a hospital or other inpatient facility. Outpatient care can include diagnosis, observation, consultation, treatment, intervention, and rehabilitation services, and can be delivered in a variety of settings, such as primary care clinics, community health centers, urgent care clinics, ambulatory surgery centers, and even some pharmacies. Certain surgical procedures, such as hip and knee replacements, dental surgery, gastric bypass, breast augmentation, and others, can even be performed in the outpatient setting.
One of the greatest benefits of outpatient care is that it is more cost-effective than many inpatient services. An overnight hospital stay can often come at a great expense to the patient, and likely demands more healthcare resources, from hospital labor to surgical supplies, medical equipment, beds, and more. Outpatient care is also important for measuring access to appropriate primary health care, including preventive and disease management services. While not all admissions for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions are avoidable, appropriate ambulatory care could help prevent their onset, control an acute episode, or manage a chronic disease or condition.
In contrast, inpatient care is care provided in a hospital or other type of inpatient facility, where the patient is admitted and spends at least one night, sometimes more, depending on their condition. Patients undergoing inpatient care tend to have serious, sometimes life-threatening conditions, and require around-the-clock medical staff to provide medicine, care, monitoring, and medical treatment. Once a doctor decides that the patient no longer requires inpatient care, they are discharged from the facility and may receive outpatient services, if needed.
