But is it also a sign of things to come?As with any sector, there is continual advancement in the medical device industry that identifies and improves on design and materials. Hip and knee replacement, in terms of both device and surgical procedure, are not the same animals they were 20 years ago. However, in the 1990s, for example, the belief was widespread that things were being done properly.
Time and experience have proven otherwise, with the issues of device sterilization as but one example. Liners were at one time sterilized using gamma irradiation in air. However, it was later found that the irradiation process negatively impacted the polyethylene liners, causing them to wear too quickly. Patients wound up with floating particles, bone loss and total device failure.
It has since been determined that irradiating liners through an inert gas helps to avoid such rapid wear. Combined with advancements in materials, hip and knee replacements (for the most part) are much more reliable than they used to be.
However, what will we know 20 years from now? What miscues in the design and process of 2011 will be identified in 2031? And will the Hip Replacement Lawsuit fade into obscurity, or grow in numbers?
The next 20 years will be pivotal as boomers approach and enter retirement. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons notes that more than 700,000 primary total hip and knee replacements are done in the US every year.
That's right now. But that's about to change, according to Dr. Mark A. Hartzband, a prominent orthopaedic surgeon who practices in Bergen County, New Jersey. He told the Centre Daily Times in April of last year that "demand for [hip and knee replacement] surgery is expected to double in the next ten years."
The median age of his patient caseload is telling. Twenty-six years ago, Dr. Hartzband said the average age of his patients was 78. Today the average has dropped to somewhere between 56 and 58. Hartzband notes that boomers "are the fastest-growing population for joint replacements."
Hospitals, and the health care system, are painfully aware of this demographic swell and have to make some tough choices. In an interview published online in the January–February 2011 issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management, the esteemed Eugene S. Schneller, PhD, Professor and Dean's Council of 100 Distinguished Scholars, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University noted that implantable devices such as hip and knee replacements will be amongst "the most expensive admissions.
"In accountable care organizations or medical homes, supply costs accrue within a single admission," Professor Schneller continued. "Because reimbursement focuses on an entire case, we can think about what goes into bundled payments and how supplies contribute to the total admission cost. The physician's choice of supplies has always been a key issue. Does the physician put in the most expensive implant, or the most appropriate implant, or does she work with the hospital to make better choices?
"Putting in the appropriate implant for the best cost is the goal."
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Will the patient be compromised as a result? And will such compromise, extrapolated across a sizeable population given the boomer demographic wave, result in more failures requiring revision surgery and ultimately the services of a Hip Replacement Lawyer?
Time will tell if Hip & Knee Replacement Implant Failure, regardless of the ultimate cause, swells over the course of the next 20 years.