READ MORE HERE --> Disruptive Trend in Orthopedics – The 23-Hour Joint Replacement
Patients at This Seattle Surgery Center Can Go Home Just Hours After a Joint Replacement (Seattle Magazine)
At First Hill Surgery Center, patients can have a joint replaced in the morning and go home in the afternoon.
These days, it can take longer to get your car’s tires replaced than to have one of your joints replaced.
Seattle’s First Hill Surgery Center is now offering total knee and total hip replacement surgeries in an outpatient setting. Surgery takes approximately two hours, with the patient—who would be admitted at about 7:30 a.m.—generally able to go home before 2 p.m. Patients are discharged after they are awake, stable and can walk a minimum of 50 feet (and go up and down stairs, if they have them at home) using a walker.
The innovation allows patients to avoid a hospital stay, which is a big benefit for patients in the form of lower costs: between 30 and 70 percent less than an inpatient hospital setting. Outpatient surgery also may offer a lowered risk of complications, including infection. “The more time you spend in a surgery center or hospital, the more you increase the risk fo...
