Escaping the Hospital: The Math Behind Safe Outpatient Joint Replacement

How a new risk assessment tool is predicting early discharge with unprecedented accuracy.

Over the past decade, there has been a gradual increase in interest in performing primary hip and knee arthroplasties in the outpatient setting. However, outpatient arthroplasty has not been widely adopted, primarily because there is not yet a proven method for confidently identifying patients who can safely undergo outpatient hip and knee arthroplasties.

The most important aspect of performing an early discharge or outpatient arthroplasty is appropriately selecting patients to avoid putting them at undue risk.