Total joint replacement surgery is performed in a wide variety of settings including high volume academic and community hospitals. The service is provided by both high volume surgeons, with the majority of their practice dedicated to total joint surgery, as well as surgeons who provide the service relatively infrequently. Previous work has suggested that patients of low volume surgeons and institutions have longer lengths of stay in hospital, but in Ontario the sample size was previously not large enough to identify a significant difference in the rate of complications by provider volume.
The purpose of this project is to evaluate the relationship between surgeon and hospital volume and complication rates for primary and revision total joint replacement surgery in Ontario.
