As I have stated in previous blogs, there have been several reports in the orthopedic literature associating hospital and surgeon volume to outcome. Basically the higher volume facilities and surgeons tend to have lower complications and better outcomes. There is no agreement on what is the minimum number of procedures that are required to become proficient and guidelines are not available. In the interest of transparency we have elected to publish the number of procedures we do at Valley Medical Center and I will annually disclose the number of total joint procedures I personally perform. As of 2010, we at Valley Medical Center will perform over 1000 joint replacement procedures. I personally have averaged greater than 500 hip and knee replacements over the last three years. This is a mixture of total hip and knee replacement as well as revision hip and knee replacement procedures. Because of our association with the Valley Orthopedic Research Foundation, we have several ongoing clinical studies and prospectively follow our hip and knee replacement patients, which gives us access on an ongoing continual basis to our outcomes, complications, and overall results. We have published several papers and presentations on results of hip and knee replacements, and as mentioned in previous blogs, we are currently enrolling patients in a prospective randomized study comparing anterior to posterior hip replacement surgery.
— William P. Barrett, MD
