Several patient factors may affect in-person, virtual joint education class attendance
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CHICAGO — Results showed “non-white,” Hispanic and non-English-speaking patients were more likely to attend in-person and virtual preoperative joint replacement education classes, with virtual classes reducing barriers to access.
Brett L. Hayden, MD, and colleagues assessed patient attendance patterns of both in-person and virtual preoperative total joint replacement education classes across three total joint replacement centers. The assessment periods included from April 2019 to February 2020 for in-person classes and from August 2020 to April 2021 for virtual classes. Researchers also collected demographic information, including patients’ age, race, ethnicity, primary language, insurance type, patient-reported outcome scores and distance from the hospital.
“What we were looking at was attendance and which patients specifically were attending both in-person joint class and the virtual joint class,” Hayden, assistant professor of adult reconstruction in the department of orthopedics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Healio about results presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting. “The goal of this was to identify barriers to presenting to the joint replacement class and, potentially in the future, try to mitigate any barriers that may be present in the attending of the class.”
Results showed a joint class attendance rate of 69.9% prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and a joint class attendance rate of 69.2% after the pandemic.
“We identified, for the in-person class, that patients who were non-white, who were Hispanic and who were non-English [speaking] as their primary language attended at a higher rate than other patients,” Hayden said.
He added patients with a worse disease-specific outcome preoperatively measured by the Hip Disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score and KOOS score, as well as a worse mental capacity score, attended the in-person joint class at a higher rate.
Hayden noted they found no demographic changes with the shift to virtual classes, with “non-white” patients, Hispanic patients and patients who were non-English speaking as their primary language attending at higher rates. Patients who lived in closer proximity to the in-person class attended the class at a higher rate, while distance became a non-significant factor for the virtual classes, according to Hayden. He added younger patients were also more likely to attend the virtual class.
“While we can’t move the joint replacement class closer to those who live farther away, I think identifying the fact that there are barriers will help us going forward to establish a multimodal approach of offering both an in-person and a virtual class so we can mitigate the barriers to access to this class,” Hayden said.
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Pitaro NL, et al. Poster 0536. Presented at: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting. March 22-26, 2022; Chicago.
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