The Same-Day Discharge Trap: Why Up to 49% of Joint Replacements Fail to Go Home

New data uncovers the exact medical and surgical factors that predict whether you will actually leave the hospital on the same day.

In the United States, same-day discharge (SDD) after primary hip and knee total joint arthroplasty (TJA) has evolved into an increasingly common practice. We know that when properly executed, SDD is highly effective. Nonetheless, failure to achieve planned SDD for primary TJA occurs in as many as 7% to 49% of patients in the United States.

As we push for more efficient, patient-friendly recovery pathways, it is critical to understand why these failures happen. To find out, we performed a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from 466 primary TJAs with planned SDD to home. Surgeries were performed at an academic tertiary care center comprising a hospital facility and a stand-alone ambulatory surgery center (ASC) on the same campus.