Each additional 1,000 steps per day a patient walks after surgery is linked to 18% lower odds of complications, 16% lower readmission rates and 6% shorter hospital stays, researchers found.
The study, conducted by researchers at Columbus-based Ohio State University and published May 6 in Journal of the American College of Surgeons, analyzed data from the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program and included 1,965 adult patients who underwent inpatient surgery. Researchers used EHRs with data from wearable devices.
“We tell patients that they need to get up and walk after an operation, but we don’t have a good
sense of how much they’re actually moving,” Timothy Pawlik, MD, PhD, senior author of the study and professor and chair of the department of surgery at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, said in a May 6 news release. “Wearables give us an objective, continuous readout. Instead of asking how you feel, we can see that you’re up and moving, which is a very actionable signal of how your recovery is progressing.”
Here are three things to know:
1. Patient step count after surgery was a more powerful predictor of recovery and outperformed metrics such as heart rate variability and self-reported wellness.
2. Every additional 1,000 steps a patient took per day reduced length of stay, risk of complications and readmissions, and the association remained true across different procedures and patient health statuses.
3. Step counts are a practical tool to track recovery in real time, guide discharge decisions and identify patients who need more post-discharge support, the release said.
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