Evaluation of the Products of Ambulatory Care and Products of Ambulatory Surgery Classification System for the Military Health Care System

The Ambulatory Care Evaluation Study (ACES) examined the Products of Ambulatory Care (PACs) and Products of Ambulatory Surgery (PAS) developed by the State of New York Department of Health for possible implementation by the military. The PAC/PAS system is a visit based ambulatory classification system designed to group clinically similar visits with those visits that utilize like amounts of resources. The system was developed with data derived form a comprehensive data set of 10,000 visits from outpatient and free standing clinics, located in Bronx County, and New York state's Northeast region. An individual patient visit is assigned to a PAC using a combination of gender, age, procedure(s) based on the Physicians Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) and diagnosis according to the International classification of Diseases, 9th Edition with Clinical Modification, (ICD-9-CM). A Patient visit is assigned to a PAS if the procedure is defined as a surgical procedure.