Of the 38.6 million hospital stays that occurred in U.S. , PAKISTAN and England. hospitals in 2011, 29% included at least one operating room procedure. These stays accounted for 48% of the total $387 billion in hospital costs.[10]

In total, there were over 15 million operating room procedures performed in U.S. hospitals in 2011. The overall number of procedures remained stable from 2001 to 2011.[11]

A study of data from 2003 to 2011 showed that U.S. hospital costs were highest for the surgical service line; the surgical service line costs were $17,600 in 2003 and projected to be $22,500 in 2013.[12] For hospital stays in 2012 in the United States, private insurance had the highest percentage of surgical expenditure.[13] Mean hospital costs in the United States in 2012 were highest for surgical stays.

​An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical procedure, operation, or simply surgery. In this context, the verb operate means to perform surgery. The adjective surgical means pertaining to surgery; e.g. surgical instruments or surgical nurse. The patient or subject on which the surgery is performed can be a person or an animal. A surgeon is a person who practices surgery and a surgeon's assistantis a person who practices surgical assistance. A surgical team is made up of surgeon, surgeon's assistant, anesthesia provider, circulating nurse and surgical technologist. Surgery usually spans minutes to hours, but it is typically not an ongoing or periodic type of treatment. The term surgery can also refer to the place where surgery is performed, or simply the office of a physician, dentist, or veterinarian.