Patients with ‘no-show’ status may have increased complication risk after THA
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Key takeaways:
- Patients who do not attend appointments have increased postoperative complication risk vs. patients who always attend.
- Researchers suggested increased social support may be necessary for “no-show” patients.
GRAPEVINE, Texas — Results presented here showed patients who do not attend clinical appointments have an increased risk for 90-day postoperative complications after primary total hip arthroplasty.
“No-show data is another tool that surgeons could use to try to gain a preoperative assessment of postoperative risk of patients,” John J. Mercuri, MD, said during his presentation at the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons Annual Meeting.
Mercuri and colleagues retrospectively categorized 4,147 patients who underwent primary THA between 2011 and 2021 into groups based on whether the patient did not cancel or reschedule within 2 hours of at least one appointment that they did not attend (no-show cohort) or if they attended all of their clinical appointments (always attended cohort).
“We looked at standard 90-day complications, demographic factors and did statistical analysis of the data,” Mercuri said.
Mercuri said that patients in the no-show cohort had increased risk for postoperative complications vs. the always attended cohort. This increased risk was especially pronounced for anemia-related complications, according to Mercuri.
In addition, Mercuri said risk factors associated with no-show status included age younger than 65 years, Black or African American race, female gender, active tobacco smoking status, BMI greater than 30 kg/m2, Charleston Comorbidity Index greater than 3 and private insurance.
“These may be patients that need greater social support before surgery to involve care management or social workers,” Mercuri said. “There is a different conversation that you have with a patient about their risk, and they may require closer postoperative follow-up to try and catch any complications that are happening so that we find the best care we can for these patients.”
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Mercuri JJ, et al. Paper 53. Presented at: American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons Annual Meeting; Nov. 2-5, 2023; Grapevine, Texas.
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