Fig. 1

An overview of current patient journey. We distinguished four clearly separated phases that the patients go through which may involve several events: (1) pre-referral primary care (long, often uncertain process with pain), (2) the specialist assessment and preoperative surgical visit (all patients receive oral counseling in conjunction with written material about their surgery and preliminary home care instructions), (3) in-hospital care (patients undergo surgery and spend approximately 40–64 h on the ward. Patients are discharged with written post-surgery home care instructions about wound care, removal of stitches, analgesia, physical activity, potential complications, and instructions for follow-up), and (4) homecare (the first control visit will be in primary care in 2 weeks post-discharge. The second control visit will be in hospital at 6–8 weeks post-discharge for patients with knee replacements and in 8–12 weeks for patients with hip replacements. Patients do not meet their surgeon unless they have complications)