What Is Ambulatory Care? Overview and FAQ
Traditional healthcare settings can be difficult for patients to navigate. With issues like inadequate staffing and bed shortages, hospitals alone are unable to provide the diverse and in-depth care that individuals often require. Ambulatory settings are used to help streamline care for patients who don’t need complex treatments.
You might be asking yourself, “What is ambulatory care?” The American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing (AAACN) describes ambulatory care nursing as a practice built on broad healthcare knowledge, which uses the nursing process to apply clinical expertise.
What does this mean for your facility? Follow along below as we outline in detail the principles of ambulatory care nursing, provide examples of the types of patients served, and explain how this type of setting is beneficial for you, your staff, and your patients.
What Is Ambulatory Care Nursing?
Nurses working in ambulatory care often have the responsibility of caring for patients across the lifespan, from infancy to adulthood. This specialty involves the treatment of patients in outpatient care settings, completing treatment without hospital admission.
There is no real difference in ambulatory care vs. outpatient care; these terms can be used interchangeably when discussing this patient population. Ambulatory care nursing is performed in locations such as:
- Physician offices
- Vaccination clinics
- Dialysis facilities
- Outpatient surgery centers
- Infusion clinics
In some instances, ambulatory care can be provided in inpatient facilities. For example, the emergency department in the hospital often treats patients classified as “outpatients.” The individual comes in for treatment and leaves the same day with no major health concerns.
Ambulatory care nurses play a vital role in ensuring that patients with acute and chronic conditions receive safe, timely treatment. Through the establishment of relationship-based care, nurses can help to improve outcomes for their patients, decrease emergency department visits, and lower the frequency of hospital readmission.
What Is an Example of Ambulatory Care?
The scope, volume, and complexity of patient services in ambulatory care facilities is expanding to help alleviate the overcrowding problem in hospitals that are at full capacity. Facilities employ multidisciplinary staff, including nurses, physicians, physical therapists, unlicensed medical technicians, and administrative staff to serve this diverse patient population.
Some administrators may ask, “Is ambulatory care primary care?” The short answer is no. Primary care is just one example of an ambulatory care service, but there are many types of treatments covered under the ambulatory care umbrella. The list below reviews examples of the types of care patients can receive:
- Physical exams and vaccinations
- Radiology imaging like x-rays, MRIs, mammograms, and CT scans
- Laboratory blood draws
- Chemotherapy or dialysis
- Urgent care like stitches, sutures, soft-casting for minor ailments and injuries
- Small surgeries like skin biopsies, laparoscopic abdominal surgery, or colonoscopies
Determining what is ambulatory care and what is not ambulatory care might seem complicated, but categorizing these patients is actually quite simple. To answer the question “Is the patient ambulatory?” you can ask yourself the following questions:
- Will this patient’s treatment last more than 24 hours?
- Does this patient need to be hospitalized for this care occurrence?
- Am I concerned about the patient’s immediate health status?
- Do I feel that the patient needs routine monitoring after this treatment?
If the answer to all of these questions is “no,” you can determine if your patient can be classified as an ambulatory care patient.
Why Is Ambulatory Care Important?
Outpatient facilities offer life-saving treatments outside of the traditional hospital setting. This allows companies to cut costs, reduce redundancy, appeal to the modern needs of patients, and even improve staff wellness.
How Ambulatory Care Helps Your Facility
With the breadth and variety of services provided, it’s unsurprising that nearly 90% of healthcare treatments are provided in outpatient care settings. Facilities can focus on reducing patient readmissions and consolidating care efforts by incorporating ambulatory care into their health care models.
Expanded electronic medical record (EMR) and telehealth capabilities allow healthcare systems to provide seamless care across outpatient and inpatient settings. Facilities can cut costs by reducing the redundancy of tests and diagnostics, especially for chronic care patients who frequently access ambulatory services.
How Ambulatory Care Helps Your Staff
The outpatient setting offers plenty of perks for its employees, helping with nurse retention and reduction of nurse turnover. Outside of busy hospital units, ambulatory care nurses can work at a slower pace and often have more time to educate each patient. They can develop meaningful relationships with the people they care for, as many chronic-care patients visit ambulatory environments routinely.
Another benefit to working in an outpatient setting is that workdays are often Monday through Friday, for 8-hour shifts instead of the normal 12-hour shifts of hospital staff. Nurses looking to establish a more regular schedule, cut down on night shifts, and develop a healthy work-life balance are often drawn to working in the ambulatory care environment.
How Ambulatory Care Helps Your Patients
Outpatient settings make it easier for patients to access the healthcare system. Walk-in style environments like vaccination clinics and urgent care centers appeal to individuals with busy schedules. Small waiting rooms across the community provide much shorter wait times for acute, easy to fix problems, compared to traditional hospital emergency departments.
Ambulatory care centers allow hospital emergency rooms to prioritize critically ill patients. Decreased door-to-physician times lead to better patient outcomes and higher patient satisfaction in outpatient facilities with 24-hour appointment availability.
How Can I Find Out More?
What is ambulatory care’s impact on your facility and how can it be utilized to provide the best patient care possible? Get the latest free healthcare insights and trends for your facility with IntelyCare’s newsletter.