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Background: Unplanned readmissions have become an important quality indicator, particularly for reimbursement; thus, accurate assessment of readmission frequency and risk factors for readmission is critical. The purpose of this study was to determine (1) the frequency of and (2) risk factors for readmissions for all causes or procedure-specific complications within 30 days after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) as well as (3) the association between hospital volume and readmission rate.Methods: The Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) database from the New York State Department of Health was used to identify 377,705 patients who had undergone primary TKA in the period from 1997 to 2014. Preoperative diagnoses, comorbidities, and postoperative complications were determined using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes. Readmission was defined as all-cause, due to complications considered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to be TKA-specific, or due to an expanded list of TKA-specific complications based on expert opinion. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was utilized to determine the independent predictors of readmission within 30 days after surgery.Results: There were 22,076 all-cause readmissions-a rate of 5.8%, with a median rate of 3.9% (interquartile range [Q1, Q3] = 1.1%, 7.2%]) among the hospitals-within 30 days after discharge. Of these, only 11% (0.7% of all TKAs) were due to complications considered to be TKA-related by the CMS whereas 31% (1.8% of all TKAs) were due to TKA-specific complications on the expanded list based on expert opinion. Risk factors for TKA-specific readmissions based on the expanded list of criteria included an age of >85 years (odds ratio [OR] = 1.32, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.15 to 1.52), male sex (OR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.34 to 1.49), black race (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.14 to 1.34), Medicaid coverage (OR = 1.40, 95% CI = 1.26 to 1.57), and comorbidities. Several comorbid conditions contributed to the all-cause but not the TKA-specific readmission risk. Very low hospital volume (<90 cases per year) was associated with a higher readmission risk.Conclusions: The frequency of readmissions for TKA-specific complications was low relative to the frequency of all-cause readmissions. Reasons for hospital readmission are multifactorial and may not be amenable to simple interventions. Health-care-quality measurement of readmission rates should be calculated and risk-adjusted on the basis of procedure-specific criteria.Level Of Evidence: Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Increasing evidence supports the finding that patients undergoing a total knee arthroplasty with high-volume physicians and hospitals achieve better outcomes. Unfortunately, the existing definitions for high-volume surgeons and hospitals are highly variable and entirely arbitrary. The aim of this study was to identify a set of meaningful hospital and surgeon total knee arthroplasty volume thresholds.Methods: Using 289,976 patients undergoing primary total knee arthroplasty from an administrative database, we applied stratum-specific likelihood ratio (SSLR) analysis of a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to generate sets of volume thresholds most predictive of adverse outcomes. The outcomes considered for surgeon volume included 90-day complication and 2-year revision. For hospital volume, we considered 90-day complications and 90-day mortality.Results: SSLR analysis of the ROC curves for 90-day complication and 2-year revision rates by surgeon volume identified four volume categories: 0 to 12, 13 to 59, 60 to 145, and ≥146 total knee arthroplasties per year. Complication rates decreased significantly (p < 0.05) in progressively higher-volume categories. Revision rates followed a similar pattern, but did not decrease between surgeons performing 60 to 145 arthroplasties per year and those performing ≥146 arthroplasties per year. SSLR analysis of 90-day complication and 90-day mortality rates by hospital volume also identified four volume categories: 0 to 89, 90 to 235, 236 to 644, and ≥645 total knee arthroplasties per year. Complication rates decreased significantly (p < 0.05) in progressively higher-volume categories, but the rates did not decrease between hospitals performing 236 to 644 arthroplasties per year and those performing ≥645 arthroplasties per year. Mortality rates for hospitals with ≥645 total knee arthroplasties per year were significantly lower (p < 0.05) than those below the threshold.Conclusions: Our study supports the use of SSLR analysis of ROC curves for risk-based volume stratification in total knee arthroplasty volume-outcomes research. SSLR analysis established meaningful volume definitions for low, medium, high, and very high-volume total knee arthroplasty surgeons and hospitals. This should help patients, surgeons, hospitals, and policymakers to make decisions with regard to the optimal delivery of total knee arthroplasty.Level Of Evidence: Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Limited data exist on long-term revision rates following cervical spine arthrodeses. The purposes of this study were to define reoperation rates after primary cervical arthrodeses and to identify risk factors for revisions.Methods: New York State's all-payer health-care database was queried to identify all primary subaxial cervical arthrodeses occurring in the 16 years from 1997 through 2012. A total of 87,042 patients were included in the study cohort. Demographic information was extracted. Patients' preoperative medical comorbidities, surgical indications, and operative approaches were assembled using codes from the ICD-9-CM (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification). The cohort was followed to revision surgical procedures, death, or the end of the study period. All subsequent contiguous spinal arthrodeses, including in the subaxial cervical spine, were considered revisions. The overall revision risk and the risk associated with various preoperative characteristics, surgical indications, and operative approaches were assessed using a Cox proportional hazard model.Results: During the study period, 6,721 patients (7.7%) underwent revision. The median time to revision was 24.5 months. The probability of undergoing at least one revision by 192 months was 12.6%. Arthrodeses performed via anterior-only approaches had a significantly higher probability of revision (p < 0.001) at 13.4% (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 12.9% to 13.9%) than those performed via posterior approaches at 7.4% (95% CI, 6.6% to 8.4%) or circumferential (anterior and posterior) approaches at 5.2% (95% CI, 4.0% to 6.8%). This relationship persisted in multivariate analysis; compared with anterior surgical procedures, there was a significantly lower risk of revision (p < 0.001) for posterior surgical approaches at a hazard ratio of 0.76 (95% CI, 0.69 to 0.84) and circumferential approaches at a hazard ratio of 0.53 (95% CI, 0.42 to 0.66). Patient age of 18 to 34 years, white race, insurance status of Workers' Compensation or Medicare, and surgical procedures for spinal stenosis, spondylosis, deformity, and neoplasm were associated with elevated revision risk. Arthrodeses spanning few levels and those performed for fractures had a lower revision risk.Conclusions: Primary subaxial cervical spine arthrodeses had a probability of revision approaching 13% over a 16-year period, with elevated reoperation rates in patients undergoing anterior-only surgical procedures. Age, race, insurance status, surgical indication, and number of spinal levels included in the arthrodesis were also associated with reoperation risk.Level Of Evidence: Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous studies of racial disparities in total joint replacement, particularly total knee arthroplasty, in the U.S. have predominantly focused on disparities between blacks and whites and were limited to Medicare patients or veterans, populations that are not representative of the entire U.S.Population: We sought to study racial disparities in the utilization of total knee arthroplasty, the use of high-volume hospitals, and total knee arthroplasty outcomes, including mortality and complications, using all-payer databases.Methods: We analyzed data from 8 years and 8 racially diverse states in the State Inpatient Databases (SID). Patient race was categorized according to the SID as white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and mixed race. Both crude and adjusted racial and/or ethnic disparities were evaluated.Results: In comparison with whites (4.65 per 1000 population per year), black (3.90), Hispanic (3.71), Asian (3.89), Native American (4.40), and mixed-race (3.69) populations had lower rates of total knee arthroplasty utilization (p < 0.0001). After risk adjustment, the rate of total knee arthroplasty utilization was significantly lower for blacks (odds ratio [OR] = 0.87 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.85 to 0.89]; p < 0.0001), Hispanics (OR = 0.76 [95% CI, 0.68 to 0.83]; p < 0.0001), Asians (OR = 0.83 [95% CI, 0.78 to 0.89]; p < 0.0001), Native Americans (OR = 0.87 [95% CI, 0.81 to 0.93]; p < 0.0001), and mixed race (OR = 0.84 [95% CI, 0.79 to 0.90]; p < 0.0001) compared with the rate for whites. Lower rates of total knee arthroplasty utilization for blacks, Hispanics, and mixed-race groups became worse over the years. Patients from minority groups were less likely to undergo total knee arthroplasty in high-volume hospitals than were whites. Moreover, the rates of mortality were significantly higher for blacks (OR = 1.52 [95% CI, 1.17 to 1.97]; p = 0.0017), Native Americans (OR = 6.52 [95% CI, 4.63 to 9.17]; p < 0.0001), and mixed-race patients (OR = 4.35 [95% CI, 3.24 to 5.84]; p < 0.0001). Blacks (OR = 1.08 [95% CI, 1.01 to 1.15]; p = 0.01) and mixed-race patients (OR = 1.17 [95% CI, 1.001 to 1.36]; p = 0.04) had higher rates of complications than whites.Conclusions: Minorities had lower rates of total knee arthroplasty utilization but higher rates of adverse health outcomes associated with the procedure, even after adjusting for patient-related and health-care system-related characteristics. Utilization rates were based on overall population as the proportion of the population with osteoarthritis requiring arthroplasty is unknown. Future studies that consider specific patient-level information with psychosocial and behavioral factors are needed.Level Of Evidence: Prognostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite declines in both the incidence of and mortality following hip fracture, there are racial and socioeconomic disparities in treatment access and outcomes. We evaluated the presence and implications of disparities in delivery of care, hypothesizing that race and community socioeconomic characteristics would influence quality of care for patients with a hip fracture.Methods: We collected data from the New York State Department of Health Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS), which prospectively captures information on all discharges from nonfederal acute-care hospitals in New York State. Records for 197,290 New York State residents who underwent surgery for a hip fracture between 1998 and 2010 in New York State were identified from SPARCS using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes. Multivariable regression models were used to evaluate the association of patient characteristics, social deprivation, and hospital/surgeon volume with time from admission to surgery, in-hospital complications, readmission, and 1-year mortality.Results: After adjusting for patient and surgery characteristics, hospital/surgeon volume, social deprivation, and other variables, black patients were at greater risk for delayed surgery (odds ratio [OR] = 1.49; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.42, 1.57), a reoperation (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.21; CI = 1.11, 1.32), readmission (OR = 1.17; CI = 1.11, 1.22), and 1-year mortality (HR = 1.13; CI = 1.07, 1.21) than white patients. Subgroup analyses showed a greater risk for delayed surgery for black and Asian patients compared with white patients, regardless of social deprivation. Additionally, there was a greater risk for readmission for black patients compared with white patients, regardless of social deprivation. Compared with Medicare patients, Medicaid patients were at increased risk for delayed surgery (OR = 1.17; CI = 1.10, 1.24) whereas privately insured patients were at decreased risk for delayed surgery (OR = 0.77; CI = 0.74, 0.81), readmission (OR = 0.77; CI = 0.74, 0.81), complications (OR = 0.80; CI = 0.77, 0.84), and 1-year mortality (HR = 0.80; CI = 0.75, 0.85).Conclusions: There are race and insurance-based disparities in delivery of care for patients with hip fracture, some of which persist after adjusting for social deprivation. In addition to investigation into reasons contributing to disparities, targeted interventions should be developed to mitigate effects of disparities on patients at greatest risk.Level Of Evidence: Prognostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]