What We Do

Zimmer Biomet's Rapid Recovery® Program

Zimmer Biomet is a global medical technology leader with a comprehensive portfolio designed to maximise mobility and improve health. 

For more than 20 years, we have partnered with hospitals to improve orthopaedic care pathways with Rapid Recovery®. Our evidence-based, comprehensive programme, which combines fast-track surgery with process improvements is designed to help hospitals achieve the best possible care for orthopaedic and trauma patients, through multidisciplinary collaboration and clearly defined standards. 

Zimmer Biomet offers hospitals a proposal for savings, both on economics and resources, while at the same time, the multi-disciplinary team could see improved results, and the patient could experience the benefits of early rehabilitation(1&2). We do this by using medical and business process redesign to target better and more predictable outcomes.                               

In the NHS, success with Rapid Recovery has been documented and recognised by GIRFT (Getting it Right First Time) and a recent case study from North Devon District Hospital(1) described: 

  • £270K savings in bed days
  • £135K savings in implants costs
  • 60% year on year increase in patient throughput, so contributing to reducing the waiting list
  • Improved staff and patient satisfaction: 80% of patients stayed fewer than two days for a joint regardless of their patient ASA rating and translation of this approach into fracture neck of femur fractures and now have the best Length of stay in England. 

Rapid Recovery includes Zimmer Biomet’s digital care management platform: mymobility®. Hospitals using this platform have shown significant reductions in the number of in-person physical therapy visits and emergency department visits, whilst patients maintain similar outcome scores to those that attended in-person appointments(3&4). 

With mymobility®, hospitals can standardise education across multiple sites and care teams can track patient progress through remote monitoring. Remote monitoring and collection of pain scores also allows hospital to segment waiting lists based on patients’ deterioration rather than on wait times. The implementation of mymobility® in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes has delivered shorter hospital waits, with 104 weeks of waiting eliminated, through tracking post-op recovery and thus opening bed capacity to admit more patients coming in for planned care(5). 

References:

  1. Feasibility of Passively Collected Gait Parameters Using a Smart-Phone Based Care Platform Following Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty+ M. Anderson*, D. Van Andel*, J. Foran, I. Mance, E. Arnold. Orthopaedic Proceedings Vol. 103-B, No. SUPP_9, Published online 15 June 2021. Key Takeaways: mymobility enables remote gait quality measurements.
  2. The Recovery Curve for Physical Activity Following Primary Knee Arthroplasty Using Passively Collected Objective Measures with a Smart-phone Based Care Platform and Smart Watch+ M. Anderson*, D. Van Andel*, C.L. Israelite, C. Nelson. Orthopaedic Proceedings. Volume 103-B, No. SUPP_9, Published online 15 June 2021. Key Takeaways: Objective and reliable data with mymobility.
  3. GIRFT, Establishing an effective and resilient workforce for elective surgical hubs – a guide for NHS trusts and systems, June 2022, p. 25-28.
  4. 2021 Mark Coventry Award: Use of a Smartphone-Based Care Platform After Primary Partial and Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial+ Crawford, David et al. Bone Joint J 2021;103-B (6 Supple A) : 3-12 Key Takeaways: Equivalent outcomes and significantly fewer PT visits with mymobility for TKA/PKA.
  5. Early Outcomes of Primary Total Hip Arthroplasty with Use of a Smartphone-Based Care Platform: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial+ Crawford, David et al Bone Joint J 2021;103-B (7 Supple B):91-97. Key Takeaways: Equivalent outcomes and significantly fewer PT visits with mymobility for TH.

(L-R) Eleanor Charsley (ABHI), David Lawless (Zimmer Biomet), Céline Faeh (Zimmer Biomet), The Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland and Reena Hitchman (Zimmer Biomet).