Researchers reviewed outcomes from nearly 250 patients who had undergone total hip or total knee replacements, half in an outpatient and half in an inpatient setting. Inpatient and outpatient patient populations were similar; however, inpatients stayed in the hospital for two days following surgery.
In a postsurgical telephone surgery of study subjects, researchers found that 10.2 percent of outpatients were readmitted within 30 days, while 6.6 percent of inpatients were readmitted within 30 days, though the difference was not statistically significant. Including emergency and urgent care visits in these statistics raised them to 12.4 percent and 6.7 percent respectively.
Neither group had higher patient satisfaction rates.
Researchers said more work was needed to examine the trend in higher readmissions for outpatient surgery, though outpatient surgery has the potential to keep costs down for the same surgical quality, according to a news release.
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