If we were to ask you what medication or treatment has recently been referred to as:

• “The blockbuster drug of the century”

• “The holy grail of healthcare” 

• “The evolution of this will be what shape the future of healthcare”

• “No other intervention will have as much of an impact on improving quality of care and reducing healthcare costs”

In our previous blog, we discussed how a good clinical outcomes does not guarantee high patient satisfaction. How about in times of a poor clinical outcome? Is it possible that these patients could still be “satisfied” with their overall care and experience? In orthopaedic surgery, a poor surgical outcome has a wide range of consequences from prolonged pain to multiple reoperations. But when these outcomes occur, how does the patient perceive the situation, and how tight are the clinical outcomes bound to their satisfaction?

Evaluating the success of surgery can be challenging. While an orthopedic surgeon would consider surgery to be successful if the patient is active again, the patient may consider the same surgery a failure if their surgeon was impersonal, or their hospital experience was unpleasant. It goes without saying, the patient and the surgeon may not be on the same page.