4 3
M A R C H 2 0 1 4 | O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
knees, hips, shoulders or ankles? Our total hip arthroplasty patients,
and it's not even close. Given hip replacement's reputation as a bloody
procedure with a grueling recovery, we were surprised, too. But from
surgical outcomes and discharge times to patient satisfaction scores
and pain scores, the 30 hip cases we've done thus far have gone
exceptionally well. The numbers speak for themselves.
•
Discharge.
On average, our same-day total hip patients leave here
about 3 hours after their surgeries (sometimes in a hospital a patient
doesn't even get to his room 3 hours after surgery).
•
Pain.
The average pain score on post-operative day zero is 1.3. Pain
scores on days 1 and 2 are between 3 and 4 — and that's their pain
scores after physical therapy, not their pain scores at rest.
•
Satisfaction.
By replacing diseased hip joints with artificial joints,
we are truly changing our patients' quality of life — relieving their
pain, increasing their motion and helping them get back to enjoying
many normal, everyday activities. This reminds us of the post-op
patient who rather than use his walker to take his first steps with his
new hip actually lifted the walker and began to walk away with it. We
gently reminded him that the walker's wheels would help him get
around. "No thanks," he told us. "I don't need any help."
•
Complications.
We haven't seen more than 100cc of blood loss.
We've had zero readmissions and revisions, and zero falls.
Outpatient total hips?
At first we were skeptical about the concept of hip replacement with-
out a hospital stay. Discharging a patient in 3 hours who just under-
went a bloody and painful surgery that usually requires 2, 3 or more
days in a hospital is pretty ambitious. But the same-day joint replace-
ment program here at Advanced Center for Surgery, one of the first of
its kind on the East Coast, has exceeded our expectations and gar-
T O T A L H I P A R T H R O P L A S T Y
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