Hospital at home in elective total hip arthroplasty

With the recent trend towards reducing hospital stay, it has become increasingly important to ensure that early patient discharge after total hip replacement is a safe practice. We evaluated complications and length of hospital stay associated with primary unilateral hip arthroplasty in 47 patients undergoing a new early discharge protocol consisting of at home based specialized care after hospital discharge. The mean length of stay (and standard deviation) in hospital was 4.59 ± 0.68. The mean length of stay of home-based hospitalization was 3.7 ± 1. The prevalence of postoperative complications was 12.8% and the readmission rate was 6.4%. We saw a reduction of hospital stay with no difference in outcomes in comparison with previous data. On the basis of our findings we recommend the use of the early discharge protocol following elective primary total hip replacement and ongoing evaluation of the process.