Orthopaedic Care: Knee Replacement
Knee replacement is a surgical procedure to replace the diseased or damaged parts of a patient's knee joint with artificial parts. Having this procedure can help the patient walk more easily.
What are we measuring?
When knee problems cannot be repaired, the knee must be replaced. How well does BIDMC provide care for patients who require a new knee?
Number of surgeries
Studies have found that surgical teams with experience - that is, routinely performing a sufficient number of cases - get better results.
Source of data: BIDMC Administrative Databases
Surgical Infection Prevention
What are we measuring?
The percent of patients undergoing total knee replacement surgery administered timely antibiotics.
Why is this important?
With surgery, one of the biggest concerns is post-surgical infection, which affects 2% to 5% of the 16 million patients undergoing surgical procedures each year in acute care hospitals. These infections can raise the risk of complications and death after surgery. Giving patients the right medications at the right time can reduce the risk of wound infections.
What does our performance tell us?
The chart below shows how BIDMC's antibiotic administration timing compares to an appropriate benchmark. Look for big differences in the scores in order to be sure the difference is meaningful. Small differences may not reflect real differences in performance (i.e., they may not be statistically significant).
Source of comparison data: HospitalCompare (
www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov
), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, March 2012.
View our past performance over time.
According to Hospital Compare (
www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov), 100% of patients undergoing surgery at the nation's Top 10% of hospitals are given the appropriate medicines at the right time to reduce the risk of wound infection. At BIDMC, 100% of patients undergoing total knee replacement surgery are given the appropriate medicines at the right time to reduce the risk of wound infection. Therefore, BIDMC ranks among the nation's Top 10% of hospitals for giving patients undergoing total knee replacement surgery the appropriate medicines at the right time to reduce the risk of wound infection.
Surgical Infection Prevention: Reducing the Risk Associated with Antibiotics
What are we measuring?
The percent of patients undergoing total knee replacement surgery that have antibiotics discontinued within 24 hours after surgery.
Why is this important?
In most cases, it is not necessary to continue giving patients antibiotics more than 24 hours after the surgery. Administering this medication beyond that point increases the risk of side effects and can cause bacteria to become resistant to the medication.
What does our performance tell us?
The chart below shows how BIDMC's antibiotic discontinuance timing compares to an appropriate benchmark. Look for big differences in the scores in order to be sure the difference is meaningful. Small differences may not reflect real differences in performance (i.e., they may not be statistically significant).
Source of comparison data: HospitalCompare (
www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov
), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, March 2012.
View our past performance over time.
According to Hospital Compare (
www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov), 100% of patients undergoing surgery at the nation's Top 10% of hospitals have antibiotics discontinued at the right time to reduce the risk of wound infection. At BIDMC, 97% of patients undergoing total knee replacement surgery have antibiotics discontinued at the right time to reduce the risk of wound infections. Therefore, BIDMC's performance is just below the nation's Top 10% of hospitals for giving patients the appropriate medicines at the right time to reduce the risk associated with antibiotics.
What are we doing to improve our performance?
BIDMC's team of surgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses are collaborating to improve our performance and support systems such as clinical pathways, standardized order sets and staff education to optimize antibiotic usage during the post operative phase of surgery unless an infection exists.
Other useful measures on orthopaedic care:
Last updated: March 20, 2012