Total joint replacement surgery has undergone significant evolution in the last 20 years. In the year 2000, the average hospital length of stay for these procedures was four to five days with a transition to skilled nursing facility or rehabilitation floor ranging from five days to three weeks. With improvement in surgical techniques (i.e., minimally invasive approach), pain management techniques and appropriate patient selection, patients are routinely discharged from the hospital on postoperative day one or two.
Fast forward to 2017. A rapidly increasing number of patients undergoing total joint replacements are being routinely discharged three to 23 hours post-procedure with equal or lesser complication and re-admission rates to patients with longer discharge times. By the year 2025, SG2 Health Care & Hospital System Consultancy predicts that approximately 15 percent of all primary hip total replacements and 20 percent of all primary knee replacements will be performed on an outpatient...
