Hello, Dr. Keith Smith with you here, on behalf of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Thank you for joining me.

I have always said that we need hospitals. We just don’t need them to bankrupt us. Fortunately, more and more procedures are being performed on an outpatient basis. A development which affords patients the opportunity to avoid the price-gouging, bankrupting, hospitals.

One of the procedures that has traditionally been performed only on an inpatient basis is joint replacement surgery. More and more outpatient centers are performing joint replacement surgery. This has now become a popular procedure to do in the outpatient setting.

The primary challenge in an outpatient center performing this surgery is pain control for the patient. The success of the techniques for this have been so remarkable, that I would argue that the pain control for the patient who is having an outpatient total joint experience, far exceeds and is superior to that which is achieved on the inpatient basis.

Patients are home, they are away from all the nasty bugs that are in hospitals, they hurt less and they are not bankrupted. I would say these are all good things. This is such a remarkable development, I thought I’d pass it along.

Thank you for joining me, we’ll see you next time.