Principal Causes for Hospital Readmission Identified

What are the reasons for hospital readmission following hip and knee joint replacement surgeries? To find out a group of physicians in Canada examined a national database of more than 58, 000 hip and knee replacement surgeries and published their results in The Journal of Arthroplasty.

According to Brad Tritle, writing in Vitaphone Health Solutions, in the case of almost 20, 000 elective hip replacement patients the top five causes of hospital readmission were a complication of the internal orthopedic device, a complication of the procedure (probably infection), another medical issue , heart failure and, in last place, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

For the more than 31, 000 elective knee replacement patients, the top two causes for hospital readmission were the same as for hip replacement. However, the third cause was acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), followed by heart failure in fourth place and atrial fibrillation and flutter in fifth place.

Tritle reports that infection was the most common reason for revision of knee surgery in the year following surgery. This affected 38% of those patients. Overall, 1.3% of patients for hip and knee replacement surgery were hospitalized with infection in the year following surgery. He noted that diabetic patients had a higher rate of readmission for infection.