Quality assurance in primary total hip arthroplasty

Abstract

Objective: To compare two different methods of clinical outcomes documentation and investigate the potential impact of a quality assurance program.

Methods: Data on primary hip arthroplasties conducted between 2004 and 2014 were prospectively collected and analyzed.

Results: A total of 262/3395 patients suffered a postoperative complication. A reduction of complication rate was observed between 2010 and 2014. A significant difference between the two documentation methods was found in: "cardiovascular complications", "hematoma and postoperative hemorrhage" and "reintervention". Finally, the "normalized length of hospital stay" predicted the occurrence of complications.

Conclusion: Reduction of the incidence of complications through time may be attributed to accumulated surgical experience.

Keywords: Arthroplasty; Data collection; Health care; Hip; NormAge, normalized age; NormLOS, normalized length of hospital stay; NormSD, normalized duration of operation; Quality assurance; Replacement.

Fig. 1

Number of patients that experienced internally or externally documented complications. In the bar diagram are represented the absolute number of complications that were observed in our internal and external quality assurance dataset.