Technology-assisted TKA may yield lower 90-day readmission rates
Orthopedics Today reports on HSS study results published in Arthroplasty Today finding patients who had robot-assisted and computer-assisted total knee arthroplasty had lower odds of readmission within the first 90 days after surgery, which was led by study author and hip and knee surgeon Geoffrey H. Westrich, MD, and colleagues.
Dr. Westrich explained, “Robotic technology has continued to improve over the past several years. It has taken off, and what we published was that when we looked at a time period from 2010 to 2018, robotic knee replacement increased more than 2,000%.”
“So, there is a tremendous upswing of surgeons now using robotic assistance when they are doing a knee replacement,” he added.
Dr. Westrich noted, “Although the numbers are small, it implies that for every 100 patients who undergo robotic-assisted knee replacement, we can avoid one readmission. That is powerful for the surgeon who is taking care of the patient, powerful for the hospital or ambulatory care center because we want to try to avoid having patients readmitted, but the people that it affects the most are the patients.”
Read the full article at Healio.com/news/orthopedics.
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