The New Gold Standard for Outpatient Joint Replacement Safety

An update on the Outpatient Arthroplasty Risk Assessment (OARA) score and how we optimize patient selection.

Over the last 15 years, rapid recovery protocols focused on multidisciplinary care coordination, standardized perioperative protocols, and careful discharge planning have created a natural evolution from the inpatient to outpatient setting for primary total hip and total knee arthroplasty.

However, data addressing the crucial question of “who is appropriate for same day discharge after total joint arthroplasty” has historically been limited to nonspecific surrogates such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status (ASA-PS) classification system.