Aaron Shiinoki¹, Dylan Lawton², Jonathan Horng⁴, Samantha Andrews^3,4, Emily Unebasami BS³ and Cass K Nakasone^3,4

¹Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston
²John A Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, HI, USA
³Straub Medical Center, Bone and Joint Center, Honolulu, HI, USA
⁴University of Hawai‘I, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Honolulu, HI, USA

*Corresponding Author: Cass K Nakasone, University of Hawai‘I, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Honolulu, HI, USA.

Received: April 24, 2023; Published: June 14, 2023

Abstract

Purpose:Community hospitals performing unicondylar knee arthroplasty (UKA) face increasing financial pressure to transition these procedures to ambulatory surgery centers (ASC). This transition requires an understanding of the time required to safely discharge patients from the facility to comply with limited hours of operation of most ASCs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the average time required for same day discharge (SDD) following unilateral UKA.

Method:This retrospective review included 201 consecutive UKA patients having achieved SDD from a high-volume community hospital. Patient demographics, time of surgical procedure and time of actual discharge from the hospital following surgical closure were recorded. Independent t-tests were performed to compare time to discharge between patients having an incision time prior to and after noon.

Results: The average surgical time was 56.8±8.6 minutes and the average time required for discharge was 259.7 ± 85.2 minutes. Eight patients experienced post-operative nausea, delaying discharge an average of 73.8 minutes (p = 0.016). Procedures starting after noon had significantly shorter time to discharge (185.9 ± 33.7 minutes) compared to those starting prior to noon (263.7 ± 83.1 minutes) (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: On average, discharge required four hours following surgery. Morning surgical volumes and post-operative nausea significantly increased the time required to discharge. Therefore, standard procedures should be evaluated to ensure these barriers can be modified when transitioning to an ambulatory surgical center.

Keywords:Discharge; Outpatient; Unicondylar Knee Arthroplasty; Same Day Discharge

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Citation

Citation: Cass K Nakasone., et al. “Time Required for Same Day Discharge Following Unilateral Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty Performed in a Community Hospital Setting”.Acta Scientific Orthopaedics 6.7 (2023): 30-34.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2023 Cass K Nakasone., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.