Preparing patients digitally before joint replacement surgery could significantly reduce costly late cancellations and post-operative recovery times.
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has launched a year-long trial evaluating a digital prehabilitation program for patients awaiting hip and knee replacements. Delivered through a partnership with QuestPrehab, the pilot provides 100 waiting-list patients with eight to 10 weeks of home-based physical exercises, nutritional advice, psychological support, and sleep guidance prior to surgery.
Operational Resilience
Orthopedic waitlists continue to stretch NHS capacity, making last-minute surgical cancellations a major operational bottleneck. Standard face-to-face prehab requires dedicated physiotherapy staff and physical clinic space, which limits patient throughput.
By shifting pre-surgical conditioning into the home, health systems aim to ensure patients arrive fit for surgery, reducing acute complications and shortening overall length of stay.
The Catch
While remote perioperative tools promise scalability, this small 100-patient pilot at Orpington Hospital lacks long-term outcome data. Digital interventions depend heavily on patient compliance and digital literacy, meaning frail or tech-averse populations might see limited benefit without dedicated support.
Health systems should treat home-based prehab as a tool to streamline elective pathways, but broad adoption requires clear proof that digital compliance matches in-person clinical results.
