"Debbie Spina is a supervisor for the radiology department at the Hospital for Joint Diseases at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. But when CBS News met her this spring she was a patient who was about to undergo sameday hip replacement surgery. The yearold had been having hip pain for the past two years because of arthritis. She had heard a lot of positive feedback from people who had undergone hip replacement surgery https at her hospital. A big attraction for her was the possibility of going home right after the surgery. The option to go home the same day and have that family around me was something that I wanted to do said Spina. She believed she would be able to recuperate more comfortably at home and get back on her feet faster. At most hospitals hip replacement https patients can expect a one to threenight hospital stay. Total hip replacement surgery is increasingly common with more than  procedures done every year in the U.S. The surgery is meant to restore range of motion and help relieve arthritic pain. The procedure consists of removing the patients worn out ball and socket joint and inserting an artificial socket. On the femur side a stem is inserted into the bone and a ball is on the tip of it. NYU Langone Medical Center said it became the first academic medical center in New York City to implement a sameday hip replacement program in . Dr. Roy Davidovitch director of NYU Langones Hip Center said he performs around  hip replacements a year and approximately  percent of those patients will go home the same day. Davidovitch said patients are happier going home sooner. Nothing beats the comfort of your own home for recovery. And to be quite honest if the pain is controlled and the patient is healthy and medically completely stable there is no reason for them to be in the hospital. It really doesnt make sense. There are two common surgical approaches for a total hip replacement anterior which involves entering surgically through the front of the hip and posterior or entering surgically through the side or buttocks. According to research done by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons http there are no significant differences between either approach in recovery outcomes six months after surgery. Davidovitch favors the anterior approach which he believes has a faster and less painful recovery period in the short term because doctors dont have to cut through muscles or tendons to get to the hip like in the posterior approach. He does agree that in the long term both procedures have the same outcomes for patients. But its not the surgical approach alone that allows some of his patients to go home the same day  its a combination of what happens before during and after surgery. At NYU Langone patients have to do whats called prehab. Before the surgery they work with an occupational and physical therapist to learn information on the procedure learn exercises to do after the surgery and how to properly move around while they are recovering. During the surgery Davidovitch uses a shortacting spinal anesthetic that lasts about   hours and when closing the wound he injects a cocktail of medications to help with the inflammation and pain. Patients can be up and walking usually within three hours after the surgery. But they must have someone around the first night they are spending at home postsurgery. The people who are against the whole idea for sameday discharge for hip replacement are concerned about the very rare instances where somebody could develop a blood clot that goes to the lung or a fracture of some sort said Davidovitch. The rates of blood clots or pulmonary emboli is exceedingly low. And in general if a patient is identified as a high risk or a higher risk we dont send them home the same day. Davidovitch makes it clear that this kind of surgery is not onesizefitsall. Patients are screened first to make sure they dont have risk factors like obesity chronic liver disease or cardiac problems https Those who have risk factors must plan on staying overnight in the hospital not going right home. However not every surgeon is embracing the sameday trend. Douglas E. Padgett M.D. chief of the joint replacement service at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York is a lot more conservative about who he believes is the optimal patient for going home the same day. The number of patients that are going home at this point in time in our institution is somewhere between one and two percent. So its a relatively small percentage of patients that are going directly home said Padgett. Padgett has seen an increase in the number of hip replacement patients and a decrease in their age  some are as young as their s and s. He said his department performs the most hip replacements of any institution in the U.S. doing about  a year. While he is not against patients going home the same day he cautions that total joint replacement is a major procedure and doctors need to be careful to avoid sending patients home too soon. While I recognize there is no place like home should there be the need for urgent or medical care the question is will that be available to the patient when theyre in the setting of their own home Padgett said. Debbie Spina met all the requirements to go home the same day. Her surgery lasted about an hour which is the average time for her type of procedure. After the the operation she was able to move around but felt dizzy and nauseous. The occupational and physical therapists waited until evening to try and get her to go up and down steps and walk around which patients must be able to do before they are discharged. But Spina didnt feel well enough so she actually ended up spending the night. Even though her sameday discharge didnt go as planned Spina felt good the following morning and was able to do her exercises and leave the hospital. After her recovery is complete she has a few goals shed like to reach. I had walked prior to this four miles every morning  Id like to do that. And Id like to improve my golf game if possible Spina said while smiling. Davidovitchs goal is for patients to return to their normal level of activity as quickly as possible. And with many people wanting to maintain active lifestyles well into their s and beyond he expects to see even greater demand for hip replacement surgery and the sameday option. In general I see this growing to about  percent of my practice he said."