Summary
When someone needs a joint replacement, there are many factors that affect how well they will respond, how quickly they will recover from the procedure and the potential risks of surgery. Patient complexity is the term used to describe these factors and includes other health conditions, sometimes called co-morbidities, as well as local risk factors related to the specific joint needing to be replaced.
In this interview, consultant orthopaedic surgeon Sunny Deo and engineer and founder of TCC-Casemix Matthew Bacon, discuss how new technology is allowing surgeons to more accurately predict the surgical risk and outcomes for patients having knee replacement surgery. They describe how a new approach to data modelling is allowing the orthopaedic team at Great Western Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to more accurately assess complexity for individual patients. This has benefits for patient care and outcomes, theatre productivity and the development of pathways that are more patient-centred. They also highlight some patient safety issues associated with elective surgical hubs, which were set up to deal with high volume low complexity patients, including the deprioritising of more complex patients who may be at greatest need of surgery. Finally, they discuss the applicability of this approach to other specialties and areas of healthcare.
Content
Read more about clinical complexity in joint replacement surgery in this presentation by Sunny
Presentation - Overview of clinical complexity by Sunny Deo.pdf
About the author
Sunny Deo is a Consultant Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon at Great Western Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where he has been the Clinical Lead for the Trauma and Orthopaedic Department since 2011. Prior to this, Sunny trained and worked at hospitals across the UK and in Cape Town and Vancouver. He specialises in knee problems including sports injuries, arthritic conditions and patients with problematic joint replacements. Sunny has extensively researched a range of subjects including clinical and diagnostic complexity, outcomes following knee replacements, peri-articular fractures, knee ligament injuries, hip fractures and paediatric fracture care, publishing over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and presenting at many national and international meetings.
Dr Matthew Bacon is the Chief Executive and Founder of TCC-CASEMIX Ltd. His business has developed the means to create a whole digital pathway that runs parallel with the patient journey, from pre-operative care to post-operative outcome assessment. Supported by the world's first medical device performance information system, the technology enables transformational new insights for informed decision-making in patient care, patient choice and visibility of patient safety.
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