Why HHC
Research and innovation
Doing something before it is standard practice comes with an obligation: to measure it carefully and to share what you find. The center’s outpatient experience has contributed to the evidence base for cardiac electrophysiology outside the hospital.
Evidence, not just assertion
When Heart Health Center began performing complex electrophysiology on an outpatient basis, the question in the field was not whether it was convenient. It was whether it was safe. That is an empirical question, and answering it required protocol, measurement, and a willingness to report what the data showed.
The center became one of the early demonstrations that appropriately selected complex electrophysiology procedures — including atrial fibrillation ablation — can be performed safely in an ambulatory surgery center.
The center also maintains one of the largest ASC-based electrophysiology outcomes datasets anywhere.
Hospitals without walls
The pandemic turned an efficiency argument into an access argument. With hospital capacity consumed, CMS opened its Hospitals Without Walls waiver in March 2020, allowing hospital services to be delivered in ambulatory surgery centers for the duration of the public health emergency.
Heart Health Center performed cardiac ablation under that waiver, and published the experience in Heart Rhythm. Patients with symptomatic arrhythmias were still treated, on schedule, in a center already equipped and protocolled for the work — and the outcomes went into the literature rather than staying an internal anecdote.
Source: CMS: sweeping regulatory changes to address the COVID-19 surge →
What the evidence showed
That experience became a multicentre study in Heart Rhythm, led from this center, examining electrophysiology procedures performed in ambulatory surgery centers with same-day discharge.
4,037
consecutive electrophysiology procedures across six ambulatory surgery centers, all with same-day discharge
- 0.73%
- Adverse event rate for catheter ablation
- 0.76%
- Adverse event rate for device implantation
- 0.45–0.48%
- Urgent or unplanned hospitalisation after the procedure
Adverse event rates in ambulatory surgery centers did not differ from those in hospital outpatient departments — 0.73% versus 0.80% for ablation, and 0.76% versus 0.65% for device implantation. Neither difference approached significance.
Figures are from the published multicentre study across six centers, not from this center alone.
Where policy landed
Effective January 1, 2026, Medicare substantially expanded the ASC Covered Procedures List, adding hundreds of procedures for calendar year 2026 and revising its criteria to give physicians greater latitude in determining the appropriate patient and setting. The direction of national policy has moved toward the model this center has operated for years.
Questions about your procedure?
Our team will confirm your date, walk you through preparation, and answer questions about insurance, sedation, and recovery.