How Artificial Intelligence in Orthopedics Is Making Care More Personal

The fear about artificial intelligence in orthopedics is easy to state. More automation means less human contact. Patients become data points. Surgeons become operators. Care becomes colder.

Dr. Kevin Campbell argues the opposite, and he’s built a company on it. An orthopedic surgeon and the CEO and co-founder of STREAMD, he joined iScribe CEO Pat Williams on EP 08 of Truly Integrated to explain how the right AI makes orthopedic care more personal.

Prefer to listen? Hear Dr. Campbell’s full conversation on Truly Integrated, EP 08: episode page · Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Key Takeaways

• Clinical, operational, and cultural changes have accelerated the shift to same-day hip and knee replacement.
• Outpatient surgery puts more of the recovery journey in the patient’s hands, which raises the stakes on timely, accurate guidance.
• Physician-prescribed text messaging, supported by AI, delivers guidance before and after surgery while reducing repetitive questions for care teams.
• A pragmatic approach to robotics and emerging technology beats hype in either direction.
• Connected data, predictive analytics, and remote monitoring will shape the next era of orthopedic care.

Same-Day Joint Replacement Changed the Patient Journey

Not long ago, hip and knee replacement meant a multi-day hospital stay. Today, same-day joint replacement is increasingly common, and Dr. Campbell traced the clinical, operational, and cultural changes that made it possible.

That shift is good for patients and good for independent practices. It’s also a fundamental change in where recovery happens. When a patient goes home the same day, the first critical days of recovery happen in their living room, not a hospital bed with a nurse down the hall. Patients have questions. When can I shower? Is this swelling normal? Which medication do I take now?

In a traditional model, every one of those questions becomes a phone call, a portal message, or a worried trip back to the clinic.

The shift is well documented. In a Hospital for Special Surgery study of almost 1.8 million hip and knee replacement patients, the annual prevalence of outpatient hip and knee replacement increased exponentially from 2010 to 2017, with a mean annual change of 15.8% for hips and 11.1% for knees. The authors said they believe same-day discharge is safe but requires additional patient monitoring in the early postoperative period. In other words, the support has to reach patients at home.

Meeting Patients Where They Already Are

Dr. Campbell is a researcher at heart, with more than 30 peer-reviewed orthopedic publications, a research fellowship at the Steadman Philippon Research Institute, residency at Rush University Medical Center, and a surgical fellowship at the University of Utah. But the idea behind STREAMD came from day-to-day frustration in clinic.

“What if patients could just sort of get this information just through a traditional text message?” he said. “And so, we went with that sort of MVP. But it’s paid dividends for us because everyone’s received a text message. And so, it’s very easy for patients to get their physician-prescribed guidance. And that’s really what sort of is the story behind STREAMD. We knew there had to be a better way. We were sort of exhausted by having to answer the same questions over and over. And we didn’t want patients have to wait for that information.”

We think that insight applies to anyone evaluating artificial intelligence in orthopedics. Patients shouldn’t have to download something new or learn a new system. The technology should meet them in a channel they already use and deliver guidance the surgeon has prescribed.

Why Timely Guidance Makes Care More Personal

There’s a paradox at the center of Dr. Campbell’s argument. Automating patient guidance sounds impersonal. In practice, it’s the opposite.

When patients get the right information at the right moment, in their surgeon’s own protocol, they feel looked after. Expectations are set before surgery. Questions are answered without a wait. And care teams stop spending their days repeating the same instructions, which frees them for the conversations that truly need a human.

Timely education and expectation-setting support better recovery and reduce unnecessary clinical interactions. That’s what personal care looks like at scale.

Dr. Campbell has tested this idea himself. He was the lead author of a randomized trial at Rush University Medical Center, published in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, that compared an automated text-messaging program with traditional perioperative education in 159 hip and knee replacement patients. Patients who received the texts exercised 8.6 minutes more per day, stopped their narcotic medications 10 days sooner, and placed fewer calls to the surgeon’s office: a mean of 0.6 calls, compared with 2.6 in the control group.

A Pragmatic View of Robotics and Emerging Technology

Dr. Campbell takes a pragmatic approach to robotic surgery and other emerging technologies. That pragmatism is worth adopting as a practice-wide standard. Judge every new technology by what it does for patients and for the care team.

Imaging AI is a good example. In a systematic review and meta-analysis of 42 studies published in Radiology, AI and clinicians showed comparable performance in detecting fractures: on external validation, pooled sensitivity was 91% for AI and 94% for clinicians, with no statistically significant difference. The authors judged about half of the studies to be at high risk of bias and concluded that AI holds promise as a diagnostic adjunct. Promising, useful, and still guided by the surgeon’s judgment.

Looking ahead, he sees connected data, predictive analytics, and remote monitoring shaping the future of orthopedic care. The common thread is continuity, with technology that follows the patient through the full surgical journey and keeps going past the clinic door.

Where Artificial Intelligence in Orthopedics Fits in the Patient Journey

If technology should follow the patient through the full surgical journey, it helps to see where it shows up along the way. Here is a simple map, judged by what each use can do for the patient.

• Before surgery → Common AI uses: Imaging review, surgical planning, scheduled education → What it can give patients: Clear expectations before surgery day.
• In the operating room → Common AI uses: Robotic-assisted surgery under surgeon control → What it can give patients: Precision tools guided by their surgeon.
• Recovery at home → Common AI uses: Physician-prescribed text messaging, remote monitoring → What it can give patients: Timely answers in their surgeon’s own protocol.
• In the clinic → Common AI uses: Ambient documentation and coding support → What it can give patients: A surgeon focused on them, not the keyboard.

Imaging and robotics get most of the attention. In our view, the uses that touch every patient, every day, decide whether care actually feels more personal: the guidance patients get at home and the attention they get in the exam room.

Personal Care Extends to the Note

Patient-facing AI personalizes the journey outside the clinic. Inside the clinic, the same principle applies to documentation.

An orthopedic visit is full of details that matter, from the exam findings and imaging to the patient’s goals and the reasoning behind surgery versus conservative care. When those details are forced into a generic template, the record stops reflecting the surgeon’s actual thinking, and the patient’s story gets flattened.

iScribe was founded in 2015 inside orthopedic practices, and its approach to artificial intelligence in orthopedics starts there.

Ambient capture of the full encounter. The surgeon stays focused on the patient. A processed note is ready in roughly 30 seconds.

Provider-specific macros. Every macro is specialty-tuned to the individual surgeon’s preferences and requirements. Personal care deserves a personal note.

Coding grounded in the guidelines. iScribe Code Intelligence delivers E&M code recommendations with 95% audited accuracy, supported by detailed analysis of AMA MDM guidelines, for orthopedic practices on athenahealth or NextGen.

Time back to spend on patients. iScribe providers save roughly two to four hours per day and see 10+ more patients each week.

The Future of AI in Orthopedics Is Human

The best artificial intelligence in orthopedics leaves the relationship between surgeon and patient intact and clears away what gets in its way, including repetitive questions, delayed answers, generic notes, and hours lost to the chart.

That’s the promise Dr. Campbell describes, and it’s the standard we hold ourselves to at iScribe. If you think AI is pulling orthopedic care in the other direction, we’d like to hear why.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is artificial intelligence used in orthopedics?

Artificial intelligence in orthopedics supports surgical planning and robotics, patient engagement before and after surgery, predictive analytics, remote monitoring, and clinical documentation and coding.

Can AI make orthopedic care more personal?

Yes. AI delivers timely, physician-prescribed guidance to patients and captures detailed, surgeon-specific documentation, freeing clinicians to spend more of their attention on each patient.

How has same-day joint replacement changed orthopedic care?

Same-day hip and knee replacement shifts early recovery to the patient’s home, which increases the importance of clear expectations, timely guidance, and connected follow-up.

Is same-day hip or knee replacement safe?

For carefully selected patients, research suggests it can be. In a Hospital for Special Surgery study, outpatient hip replacement showed no significant difference in complications requiring readmission, while outpatient knee replacement showed slightly higher odds. The researchers emphasized patient selection and extra monitoring early in recovery.

Do text messages help patients recover after joint replacement?

In a randomized trial published in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, hip and knee replacement patients who received automated text messages reported better mood and had greater knee range of motion at three weeks than patients who received traditional education. Range of motion was equal between the groups by six weeks.

Does automated patient messaging replace the care team?

No. It handles the routine, predictable questions with guidance the surgeon has already prescribed, which gives nurses and staff more time for the conversations that need a human.

How does AI help with orthopedic documentation?

Ambient AI captures the visit and drafts the note, so the surgeon can stay focused on the patient and review the note afterward. With iScribe, a processed note is ready in roughly 30 seconds, built on macros tuned to each surgeon’s preferences.

About Dr. Kevin Campbell

Dr. Kevin J. Campbell is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and the CEO and co-founder of STREAMD, which delivers automated, physician-prescribed messaging to patients before and after surgery. He earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, completed a research fellowship at the Steadman Philippon Research Institute in Vail, Colorado, completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and completed a fellowship in adult reconstruction and joint preservation at the University of Utah. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles in orthopedics, including a 2019 randomized trial of automated text messaging for joint replacement patients.

Hear the Full Conversation

Listen to Dr. Kevin Campbell on Truly Integrated, EP 08, “More Personal, Not Less: How AI is Humanizing Orthopedic Care.”

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