Racial Disparities in Joint Replacement Care

Total joint arthroplasty is widely performed in patients of all races with severe osteoarthritis to relieve pain and improve joint function and mobility. Although several studies have suggested that racial minority patients are less likely to undergo joint replacement surgery little is known about the quality of arthroplasty care that African Americans receive as compared to Caucasians. 

Using data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) files between 2002 and 2005, which contain information regarding hospitalization for Medicare beneficiaries, Cai and colleagues profiled US hospitals' quality of care. Quality was based on the rate of complications including sepsis, hemorrhage, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis and severe wound infection, as well as the number of deaths, experienced in the 90 days after total  joint replacement surgery 

To test for a racial difference in access to high-, intermediate- and low-quality hospitals, the authors then looked at 91,599 elderly patient admissions for knee replacement between July and December 2005 in 2,842 hospitals. 

Their analyses, which focused on Caucasian and African American patients only, showed that African American patients undergoing  were less likely to be admitted to high-volume hospitals. Instead, compared to Caucasian patients, they were more likely to be admitted to hospitals that perform few which have been correlated to lower-quality knee arthoplasty surgery. The fact that African American race was a predictor for admissions to low-quality hospitals, provides direct evidence of racial disparities in access to high-quality arthroplasty care.