DJO’s OaraScore Tool May Help Determine Total Knee Outpatient Risk

DJO OaraScore Tool

DJO’s launch of the OaraScore™ Outpatient Arthroplasty Risk Assessment tool seeks to provide clinicians with more accurate information to assess post-operative length of stay after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). “The ability to identify patients for outpatient joint replacement surgery with a validated and consistent tool is essential to any rapid discharge program,” DJO leadership stated in prepared remarks.

DJO also pointed to the removal of TKA procedures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) inpatient-only list, which is a driving factor in hospitals’ need for effective tools to determine the appropriate patient length of stay and to minimize re-admission rates, two major drivers of cost in total joint replacement.

OaraScore utilizes a clinically-validated, multi-disciplinary algorithm featured in a study published in The Journal of Arthroplasty in August 2017. This study revealed that a patient’s OaraScore for total joint replacement more precisely predicted the ability for the patient to discharge home the same day or the next morning vs. commonly used risk tools, such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Classification System (ASA-PS) and the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI). The study’s results showed that the positive predictive value of the OARA score was 81.6% for the same or the next day discharge, compared with that of 56.4% for ASA-PS and 70.3% for CCI scores.

Developed in partnership with R. Michael Meneghini, M.D., Director of Orthopaedics and Joint Replacement and Peter Caccavallo, M.D., Medical Director of Peri-Operative Medicine, both from Indiana University Health Saxony Hospital, OaraScore evaluates nine critical co-morbidity factors and overall medical conditions in its calculation.

In addition to utilizing OaraScore to determine risk level for outpatient surgery, the software also tracks readmission rates and compares encrypted data to all other physicians who use the tool.

“Surgeons generally have a good sense of which patients will do well in an outpatient or rapid discharge environment,” Dr. Caccavallo said. “OaraScore allows medical professionals to move beyond that standard and utilize a scientifically sound and consistent approach to risk stratification.”

OaraScore is offered as a component of DJO’s MotionMD® web-based SaaS healthcare solutions platform. This point-of-care software suite is designed to support claims management and inventory dispensing, and can fully integrate with electronic medical records, electronic ordering, billing and practice management systems.

DJO reports that as of last month, Motion MD processed more than 1.5 million patient agreements since launch in 2016.

In conclusion, we expect more device companies to commercialize software solutions, tools and even apps that facilitate pre- and post-procedure decisions. How OEMs respond to the shift of procedures to outpatient facilities will likely have a direct impact on their orthopaedic revenue in the coming years.



Rob Meyer is ORTHOWORLD’s Senior Editor. Please send comments on this article to Carolyn LaWell.

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