Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Perioperative Medicine
Date Submitted: May 28, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 4, 2025 - Jul 30, 2025
Date Accepted: Sep 8, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Clinical pathways in knee and hip arthroplasty: A narrative review on sustainability, quality, and resource management
ABSTRACT
Background:
The growing burden of joint disorders, driven by the aging population, highlights the need for efficient surgical intervention. Clinical pathways (CPWs) standardize care, improve outcomes, and optimize resource use in orthopedic surgery.
Objective:
This narrative review examines the pivotal role of clinical pathways (CPWs) in knee and hip arthroplasties, essential procedures for enhancing patient quality of life.
Methods:
We conducted a narrative review focusing on how CPWs impact sustainability, quality, and resource management in knee and hip arthroplasties, integrating literature from PubMed and Cochrane databases according to PRISMA guidelines.
Results:
Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) pathways and virtual clinics have significantly improved hospital discharge timelines, resource utilization, and patient satisfaction. Despite these benefits, challenges remain in balancing standardized care with individual patient needs.
Conclusions:
This review highlights the importance of CPWs in improving healthcare delivery and patient outcomes in orthopedic surgery. Future efforts should focus on refining CPWs, integrating digital tools, and maintaining flexibility to adapt to evolving healthcare demands.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.