New joint replacement procedure sends patients home after surgery

WSFA/NBC - Joint replacement surgery used to mean several days of recovery in a hospital. Not anymore. Some surgeons offer the surgery as an out-patient procedure and find there's less anxiety beforehand and a lot more relief after.

"I was in pain daily," Kim Burke explains about her shoulder. "When it started to interrupt my sleep, that I wasn't getting more than an hour, get up move around a bit, I decided it was time. "

It was time to get her shoulder replaced, something her doctors told her was inevitable with osteo-arthritis.

"I'm not a fan of staying overnight in the hospital," Burke said. So for this procedure, she didn't.

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jason Stein specializes in joint replacement. Burke was his first out-patient shoulder surgery.

"When the surgery is done faster efficiently there's a lot less pain afterward," Dr. Stein described. "So I think we've done better at that which has allowed patients to get out".

Technology has gotten better and so has the equipment, but Dr. Stein says the bottom line is that surgeons are better.

Kim Burke is no longer in pain or missing out on the things she loves in life.

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