NYC Gazette

Michael P. Ast, MD, Chief of the Knee Service and Chief Medical Innovation Officer at HSS, discussed a study with Healio indicating that patients with familial emergency contacts may experience better outcomes following total hip or knee arthroplasty compared to those with non-familial contacts.

“During the last decade or so, we have gained increasing awareness of the importance of understanding the social determinants of health and its implications on outcomes after hip and knee arthroplasty. The transition to shorter hospital stays and ambulatory hip and knee replacement have further highlighted this importance. This study uses non-familial primary contacts as a proxy for a patient’s lack of any direct relatives available to assist with care immediately following surgery. While this may not be perfectly accurate, it appears a reasonable way to evaluate the subject and provides some fascinating, albeit not unexpected, results,” explained Dr. Ast.

The full article is available at healio.com.