%0 Journal Article
%T Arthroplasty Utilization in the United States is Predicted by Age-Specific Population Groups
%A Bronislava Bashinskaya
%A Ryan M. Zimmerman
%A Brian P. Walcott
%A Valentin Antoci
%J ISRN Orthopedics
%D 2012
%R 10.5402/2012/185938
%X Osteoarthritis is a common indication for hip and knee arthroplasty. An accurate assessment of current trends in healthcare utilization as they relate to arthroplasty may predict the needs of a growing elderly population in the United States. First, incidence data was queried from the United States Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 1993 to 2009. Patients undergoing total knee and hip arthroplasty were identified. Then, the United States Census Bureau was queried for population data from the same study period as well as to provide future projections. Arthroplasty followed linear regression models with the population group >64 years in both hip and knee groups. Projections for procedure incidence in the year 2050 based on these models were calculated to be 1,859,553 cases (hip) and 4,174,554 cases (knee). The need for hip and knee arthroplasty is expected to grow significantly in the upcoming years, given population growth predictions. 1. Introduction As the post-World War II ˇ°baby boomˇ± generation ages, a growing percentage of Americans will be living into their eighth decade and beyond [1]. Such demographic shift has significant implications for the design of a new healthcare delivery model [2, 3]. Medical conditions prevalent in the elderly are of particular interest and will have the greatest impact on the system. These include degenerative conditions, with severe arthritis afflicting over 15% of the population and estimated to surpass 20% (or 60 million people) by 2020 [4, 5]. As osteoarthritides of the knee and hip are known to increase with age, it is not surprising that the majority of knee and hip arthroplasty is performed in the elderly [6¨C12]. Being in a current state of healthcare reform with specific funding allocations being made, the understanding of future trends becomes critical. Considering that musculoskeletal complaints are the leading cause of medical claims, (with osteoarthritis encompassing the majority of disability in elderly adults), it is necessary to identify recent trends in arthroplasty and project future utilization needs. We hypothesize that the elderly subpopulation is correlated with arthroplasty utilization and can be used to predict arthroplasty utilization in the future. 2. Methods/Materials The data was analyzed anonymously, using publicly available secondary data; therefore no ethics statement is required for this work. To protect the confidentiality of patients, the dataset suppressed reporting when values were based on 10 or fewer discharges or when fewer than two hospitals in the state were reporting. Incidence
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.orthopedics/2012/185938/