Orthopedic services are some of the most widely rendered in the United States. Virtually all U.S. hospitals provide some level of orthopedic care, and nearly 4,600 provide major orthopedic services. Despite the volume of orthopedic care provided, patient experience differs greatly; there is wide variation in the length of time patients are in the hospital and the aggressiveness of their paths to recovery. And while most orthopedic treatments and procedures would not be considered matters of life or death, they certainly rank high on the quality-of-life scale. Consequently, orthopedic services are under increased scrutiny from patients, physicians, and insurers.

Orthopedic care has also captured the attention of the federal government. The Medicare Participating Centers of Excellence Demonstration for Orthopedic and Cardiovascular Services, begun in 1997 and effective through 2001, was established to improve the quality of care of cardiac and orthopedic patients while controlling costs. Our 100 Top Hospitals™: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success study released earlier this year addressed the former group of patients; the aim of this study is to guide the improvement of the care of the latter.

The aim of this study is to guide that improvement for the care of all orthopedic patients. Although we limited our study to a fraction of hospitals (1178) that perform certain orthopedic procedures a defined number of times, our findings have implications that reach far beyond this subset. The benchmarks established by this study are intended to serve as a model for improvement for all hospitals that provide cardiac care.

We hope that the benchmarks set forth in this study can serve as a model for improvement for every hospital that provides orthopedic care. 

We found that