Value-Based Contract Ideas and Next Steps for DePuy Synthes’ ATTUNE Knee Implant, Considering the Shift of Knee Replacement to the Outpatient Setting in the US and COVID-19

I attached Part 1 of my paper, which provides background information on the topic. I’ll be adding more background depending on the content of Part 2. Feel free to write a “Background” section before you start Part 2 if you think you need it. The paper is targeted towards a lay audience, so feel free to elaborate on any concepts assuming a member of the public will read it. Feel free to find sources to back up the points you make and paraphrase the content of the sources.

I want Part 2 to discuss some ideas that the medical device company, DePuy Synthes, can use to come up with a Value-Based Agreement (Contract) for their ATTUNE knee implant. This contract is aimed at hospitals that are performing total knee arthroplasty (TKA; knee replacement surgery). The contract needs to consider the shift of TKA to the outpatient setting (more competition, and less funding per procedure for TKA), as well as potentially how to improve surgical efficiency post-COVID-19. I want the following sections:

1. What are the “pain points” for the hospital due to the shift of TKA and COVID-19? What are they currently worried about, given the TKA shift to outpatient surgical centres?

2. How can DePuy share some of the risk in their contract? What are some measurable outcomes that can be used to assess the success of ATTUNE? (like reduction on length of surgery time, length of stay, how often do patients come back after surgery due to complications?)

3. What are some other elements to incorporate into this contract? For instance, outpatients spend less time in the hospital, so they don’t get as much healthcare guidance compared to when they stay longer. However, getting patients to stay for a shorter amount of time makes a hospital more competitive with outpatient centres. For example, DePuy can make training for hospital staff on how to properly discharge and stay in contact with patients, and/or provide take-home resources for patients that tell them, through video and images, whether they are healing or whether they need to go back into the hospital.

4. What are some future steps/details that need to be ironed out? What information do we need from the hospital, for instance?

5. Optional (if you can find information or make an educated estimate): Can we estimate how much money we will save the hospital if they use ATTUNE? This might be hard since there’s little publicly available data, so skip it if needed.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I attached background information on the shift of TKA to the outpatient setting as well as an ATTUNE value brief. I have more sources, but I’ll only send them if you would like.