• Brian Darrith, Nicholas B Frisch, Matthew W Tetreault, Michael P Fice, Chris N Culvern, and Craig J Della Valle.
• Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL.
• J Arthroplasty. 2019 Feb 1; 34 (2): 221-227.

BackgroundAlthough some prior work supports the safety of same-day arthroplasty performed in a hospital, concerns remain when these procedures are performed in a free-standing ambulatory surgery center. The purpose of this study is to compare 90-day complication rates between matched cohorts that underwent inpatient vs outpatient arthroplasty at an ambulatory surgery center.MethodsA single-surgeon cohort of 243 consecutive patients who underwent outpatient arthroplasty was matched with 243 inpatients who had the same procedure. One-to-one nearest-neighbor matching with respect to gender, age, American Society of Anesthesiologists Score, and body mass index was utilized. The 486 primary arthroplasties included 178 unicondylar knees (36.6%), 146 total hips (30.0%), 92 total knees (18.9%), and 70 hip resurfacings (14.5%). Ninety-day outcomes including reoperation, readmission, unplanned clinic or emergency department visits, and major and minor complications were compared using a 2-sample proportions test.ResultsThe 2 cohorts were similar in distribution of demographic variables, demonstrating successful matching. The inpatient and outpatient cohorts both had readmission rates of 2.1% (P = 1.0). With the number of subjects studied, there were no statistically significant differences in rates of major complications (2.1% vs 2.5%, P = 1.0), minor complications (7.0% vs 7.8%, P = .86), reoperations (0.4% vs 2.1%, P = .22), emergency department visits (1.6% vs 2.5%, P = .52), or unplanned clinic visits (3.3% vs 5.8%, P = .19).ConclusionThis study suggests that arthroplasty procedures can be performed safely in an ambulatory surgery center among appropriately selected patients without an increased risk of complications.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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