Satisfaction with the Process versus Outcome of Care in Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty.

Abstract Background Patient satisfaction, with both process of care and outcome of care, is critical for measuring the quality and value of elective procedures such as arthroplasty. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the correlation between early postoperative satisfaction with the process of care and 2-year satisfaction with the outcome of care after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Methods We retrospectively analyzed data from institutional arthroplasty registries. Satisfaction with the outcome of care was measured on a scale of 0-100 by a previously-validated questionnaire administered 2-years post-operatively. Patient satisfaction with the process of care was measured by the Press Ganey (PG) inpatient survey, also scored 0-100. We examined the correlation between these two measures of satisfaction in patients who underwent primary THA or TKA. Results 721 TKA patients and 760 THA patients underwent surgery and completed both the PG survey and 2-year satisfaction questionnaire. The mean age was 65.1 years with a mean BMI of 28.8 and 56% were female. The mean PG survey score for the entire cohort was 95.6. The mean 2-year satisfaction score was 90.3. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the PG survey and the 2-year satisfaction survey was 0.23 for TKA patients (p Conclusion We found a weak correlation between the measurement of satisfaction with the process of care surrounding hip and knee arthroplasty using the PG survey and measurement of satisfaction with the outcome of care after arthroplasty using a validated 2-year satisfaction instrument.