This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Clinical pathways improve quality of care for joint replacement patients, study finds
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Using clinical pathways can effectively improve the quality of the care provided to patients undergoing joint replacement, according to an article in the open-access journal BMC Medicine.
Clinical pathways have been used in surgeries since the 1980s, but their nature and usefulness are still subjects of much debate, especially as procedures such as hip and knee joint replacement represent a significant cost to hospitals.
A research team from the University of Eastern Piedmont, the Catholic University Leuven, the University Politecnica delle Marche and the Sainte Rita Hospital Trust searched four databases (Medline, Cinahl, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) using relevant medical subject headings.
The authors compared trials that contrasted the clinical pathways care with standard medical care whilst analysing at least one of the four possible clinical outcomes of postoperative complications, discharge to home, length of in-hospital stay (LOS) and direct costs.
The meta-analysis, covering 6,316 patients, showed that patients in the clinical pathways group had significantly lower levels of postoperative complications and significantly shorter hospital stays, which greatly contributed to lower hospital costs.
The authors believe that these positive findings are a consequence of the care being better organized.
For more information:
- Barbieri A, Vanhaecht K, et al. Effects of clinical pathways in joint replacement: a meta-analysis. BMC Medicine 2009, 7:32; doi:10.1186/1741-7015-7-32.