Ambulatory care refers to the medical services provided on an outpatient basis without hospitalization or other medical facility. Outpatient services include physician and dentist offices, medical laboratories, and home healthcare. Ambulatory care service is one of the major contributor to the hospital revenue and to the performance of the health care system. Ambulatory care provides diagnosis, observation, consultation, treatment, intervention, and rehabilitation services to patient with advanced medical treatments. In addition, telephone consultations, rehabilitation visits, and emergency visits to the patients is expected to attract more patients towards the services, offering greater contribution to financial outcome.

Cost saving surgeries drives the growth of the global ambulatory services market

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2016, approximately 35 million ambulatory surgical visits and 20 million surgical procedures were performed in hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs), with 15 million surgeries performed in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Also, Medicare payments to ASCs have increased by 24% from $2.9 billion in 2007 to $3.6 billion in 2012. The factors driving the growth of ambulatory services include, rising government funding offering team-based primary care, cost-saving surgeries compared to the hospitals, and government investment for ambulatory care facilities. Additionally, the growing prevalence of chronic diseases with increasing geriatric population, advancement in technology, and new reimbursement rules by the government offering economic advantage are the factors leading to the growth of the global market. Also, the demand for minimally invasive surgeries, faster patient recovery with shorter healing time, inexpensive surgical charges, and well equipped ambulatory service centers is expected to drive the market in the forecast period. However delayed diagnosis, ineffective communication, and incidence of adverse drug events are restrains for ambulatory services market.

Hospital-based ambulatory surgical centers segment is expected to witness higher growth rate owing to value added services

The global ambulatory services market is segmented on the basis of center, modality, service, application and geography.

On the basis of centers, the global ambulatory services market is segmented into:

Single Specialty Centre

Primary Care Offices

Outpatient Departments

Emergency Departments

Multi-Specialty Centre

On the basis of modality, the global ambulatory services market is segmented into:

Freestanding Ambulatory Surgical Centers

Hospital-Based Ambulatory Surgical Centers

On the basis of services, the global ambulatory services market is segmented into:

Diagnostic Services

Surgical Services

On the basis of applications, the global ambulatory services market is segmented into:

Gastroenterology

Ophthalmology

Orthopedics

Pain/Neurology

Urology

Dermatology

Others

Introduction of outpatient strategies is expected to accelerate the ambulatory services market in Asia Pacific

Regional segmentation of the global ambulatory services market by Coherent Market Insights comprises North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. According to the National Center for Health Statistics estimates in 2017, the number of outpatient surgery visits in the U.S. is increased from 2006 to 2016, from 20.8 million to 34.7 million visits, thereby raising the demand for ambulatory services. North America is expected to dominate the ambulatory services market owing to cost-saving offers eliminating hospital stays, shift of aging population to outpatient care, and expansion of network with physicians and healthcare providers. For instance, the partnership of Tenet Healthcare and United Surgical Partners International (USPI) in 2015 resulted in undertaking 20 imaging centers, 265 short-day surgical facilities with 4000 physicians. The demand for ambulatory services in Europe is expected to increase owing to event organizations by British Association of Day Surgery and Healthcare Conferences UK, to create awareness among patients and to improved quality of surgery. Asia-Pacific is expected to grow drastically in the forecast period owing to the increasing healthcare issues with rising incidence of chronic diseases, and government initiation to introduce outpatient strategies. For instance, the launch of mobile apps by China and Japan are providing medical knowledge and easy booking for outpatient appointments.

Comprehensive medical services offered by the keyplayers fuels the demand of ambulatory services market

Key players operating the global ambulatory services market include Symbion, IntergraMed America Inc., AmSurg Corp., Terveystalo Healthcare and DaVita HealthCare. The strategies applied by the key players include mergers and collaborations to offer comprehensive medical services. For instance, the acquisition of Premier Emergency Medical Specialists (PEMS) by AmSurg in 2015 marked its entry into emergency medicine specialty. Other vendors include SurgCenter, LVL Medical Group, Fresenius Kabi, Apria Healthcare and Healthway Medical Corporation Limited.