Less-Experienced Hospitals Have More Post-Procedure Complications.

Mary Elizabeth Dallas writing in Healthday reported, “People who have hip or knee replacement surgery at hospitals that do relatively few surgeries are at greater risk for serious complications after the procedure,” according to a study published in Arthritis & Rheumatism. For the study, Dr. Jasvinder Singh of the University of Alabama, and colleagues, “compiled data on 10,187 hip and 19,418 knee replacement surgeries performed in Pennsylvania in 2002.” The researchers found that “people who had a hip replaced at a hospital that did 200 or fewer surgeries a year were more likely to develop a blood clot that travels to the lungs, called a pulmonary embolism, within 30 days of surgery than were those who had their surgery at a high-volume hospital, which did more than 200 surgeries a year.”