BACKGROUND

An enhanced recovery pathway using individualized multimodal pain management with scheduled nonopioid and opioid regimens previously enabled reproducible same-day discharge of Medicare beneficiaries and commercially insured patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA) or total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedures in the hospital or in ambulatory surgery center settings.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the migration trends for TKA and THA procedures from a hospital to an ambulatory surgery center facility and to assess perioperative outcomes before and after incorporating liposomal bupivacaine into a multimodal pain management regimen for these procedures.

METHODS

This retrospective medical chart review study included patients undergoing THA or TKA with an enhanced recovery pathway in a hospital or an ambulatory surgery center between 2013 and 2019. The outcome measures included length of stay at the hospital or the ambulatory center, and opioid consumption. We compared the outcomes before and after the addition of liposomal bupivacaine to surgeon-applied periarticular intraoperative local anesthetic field blocks between in-hospital patients who received and patients who did not receive liposomal bupivacaine in 2013 and 2014, and the impact of liposomal bupivacaine use in the hospital versus the ambulatory center from 2015 to 2019.

RESULTS

In 2013 and 2014, the addition of liposomal bupivacaine increased the same-day hospital discharge rate to 32% versus 4% without liposomal bupivacaine (odds ratio, 14.3; 95% confidence interval, 5.9-33.3; <.0001); the same-day hospital discharge rates increased to 73% in 2015. From 2015 through 2019, 89% of all patients were discharged on the same day from the hospital. In-hospital opioid use was 22% lower in the liposomal bupivacaine cohort than in the patients who did not receive this medication ( = .0035). In 2018 and 2019, same-day discharge from the hospital or the ambulatory surgery center rates were 96% and 100%, respectively, and 84% of the patients used postsurgical opioid prescriptions of 30 or fewer tablets. The complication rates and healthcare resource utilization did not increase with the incorporation of liposomal bupivacaine into the enhanced recovery pathway and increased same-day discharge rates.

CONCLUSION

An enhanced recovery pathway using individualized, scheduled multimodal pain management protocol in patients undergoing THA or TKA facilitated reproducible, high same-day discharge rates and low postoperative opioid consumption. These results suggest that the use of liposomal bupivacaine for intraoperative field blocks supports predictable same-day discharge rates after THA or TKA. This protocol could facilitate same-day hospital discharge and the migration of THA and TKA procedures from the hospital to lower-cost ambulatory surgery centers.