A new study by the University of Iowa (UI) found that the more specialized a hospital is in orthopedic surgical care, the better the outcome for patients who get hip and knee replacement surgery.
According to the research, the more specialized the hospitals, the fewer serious post-surgical complications, such as blood clots, infections, and heart problems. The same holds true for deaths.
The findings were published online Feb. 11 by the British Medical Journal and are based on data for approximately 1.3 million Medicare patients who received hip or knee replacement surgeries between 2001 and 2005 at 3,818 hospitals in the United States.
“The findings suggest that more specialized hospitals have better outcomes even after we account for the type of patients each hospital cares for and the number of hip and knee replacement surgeries that each hospital performs,” stated the study’s lead author Tyson Hagen, M.D., fellow in rheumatology at the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and UI Hospitals and Clinics, in press release.
