AAOS: Patient satisfaction, outcomes after outpatient TJA, UKA in academic medical centers

Editor's Note

This study, presented March 7 at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting in Las Vegas, finds high reported satisfaction and outcomes in patients who had outpatient joint arthroplasty procedures in academic medical centers.

The study included 281 outpatient total joint arthroplasty (TJA) and unicondylar knee arthroplasty (UKA) procedures performed at two large academic medical centers. Though previous studies have reported on patient satisfaction with these procedures in ambulatory surgery centers, academic medical centers historically have not done joint arthroplasties on an outpatient basis.

Among the findings:

• 94.6% would undergo the procedure again
• 92.7% would choose to be discharged the same day again
• mean time to discharge was 5.4 hours for total hip arthroplasty (THA), 4.9 hours for total knee arthroplasty (TKA), and 4.7 hours for UKA
• 9 patients were readmitted, with readmission rates of 3.0% for THA, 2.9% for TKA, and 5.6% for UKA. There were no repeat readmissions.

The study shows there are many benefits for patients and medical centers to discharge patients the same day, and centers have the advantage that patients can be easily admitted should they need further observation, the researchers say.