Search

INTRODUCTION: Although patient satisfaction with total joint arthroplasty has been a well-measured outcome, little is known about how preadmission and post-discharge care experiences affect patients’ rating of satisfaction. OBJECTIVE: This work aimed to identify actionable factors associated with better ratings of overall care and surgical results. METHODS: A 36-item survey assessing care in the preoperative, perioperative, and post-discharge phases of care and across all phases was mailed to 7,031 patients who underwent primary unilateral elective total hip arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty in 2018. Exploratory factor analysis identified 7 actionable domains. Stepwise logistic regression models identified domains associated with ratings of overall care and satisfaction with surgical outcome. RESULTS: Of the 3,026 (43%) patients who returned the survey; 2,814 (93%) rated their overall experience of care as very good or excellent and satisfaction with surgical results as ≥ 7 on a 10-point scale. In exploratory factor analysis, four factors predicted higher ratings of both overall care and surgical outcome: knowing what to do with symptoms and pain during recovery (factor 1), self-reported health (factor 3), knowing what to expect before surgery (factor 4), and shared decision making (factor 6). Coordinated information among providers (factor 2), home health experience (factor 5), and patient-provider relationships (factor 7) also predicted overall care ratings. CONCLUSION: Patient-centered quality improvement in total joint replacement care requires thinking of care across the entire episode, including before and after the hospital stay for surgery, in addition to perioperative care. The actionable factors identified from this study can be incorporated into total joint replacement care to improve patients’ satisfaction with overall care and surgical results.

The cost to build and to maintain traditional registries for many dire, complex, low-frequency conditions is prohibitive. The authors used accessible technology to develop a platform that would generate miniregistries (small, routinely updated datasets) for surveillance, to identify patients who were missing elected utilization and to influence clinicians to change practices to improve care. The platform, tested in 5 medical specialty departments, enabled the specialists to rapidly and effectively communicate clinical questions, knowledge of disease, clinical workflows, and improve opportunities. Each miniregistry required 1 to 2 hours of collaboration by a specialist. Turnaround was 1 to 14 days.