Outcomes of hip and knee replacement surgery in private and public hospitals in Australia

Abstract

This study determined the contributing factors of hospital sector (private versus public) variation in revision rates after elective total hip replacement (THR) for hip fracture, and elective total knee replacement (TKR). Using data from a large national arthroplasty registry, funnel plots for hospitals were generated, displaying the proportion of revised primary procedures. The proportion of outliers for each distribution was defined as the proportion outside the upper 99.7% confidence limit. Survival analyses determined differences between hospital sector revision rates separately for implants with the lowest revision rate, and for all other implants. Multivariate Cox regression determined the role of hospital sector in revision, adjusting for possible confounders.