Perioperative quality-of-care measures for patients undergoing total hip or total knee replacement.

Recent years have seen the proliferation of numerous standards of quality for the process of providing health care, including total joint replacement. These attempts include the implementation of pay-for-reporting and pay-for-performance programs based on quality measures. These programs have often been implemented with few studies of the validity of the quality measures used and with limited input from the orthopedic community. Our project addresses this relative lack of evidence-based measures by developing a set of quality measures that address the perioperative care of patients undergoing total joint replacement. Our goal is to create a model for improving the quality of care and outcomes of total joint replacement in the United States by facilitating physicians in their efforts to apply the best scientific evidence to their daily practice.