For those of us who handle workers’ compensation claims involving knee injuries, there’s a new medical technology we need to know about – because it’s going to start showing up in our cases if it hasn’t already.

It’s called the “smart knee” implant, and the leading device right now is the Zimmer Biomet Persona IQ – the first and currently only FDA-approved knee replacement with built-in sensor technology. From the outside, it looks and functions like any standard total knee replacement. But embedded inside the tibial stem is a tiny wireless sensor that continuously tracks the patient’s recovery in real time.

The implant measures range of motion, step count, walking speed, stride length, and pressure distribution across the joint. That data is wirelessly transmitted to a small base station plugged into the patient’s home Wi-Fi, and from there it uploads to a secure, HIPAA-compliant cloud platform. The treating surgeon can log in and review the data remotely. The patient can see their own progress through a smartphone app, and even compare their recovery metrics against national benchmarks for patients of the same age and stage of recovery.

This isn’t experimental. It’s being used right now at major orthopedic centers across the country, including Mayo Clinic, the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, UChicago Medicine, and Lee Health in Florida. And adoption is expanding rapidly into smaller community hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. As recently as June 2025, UP Health System in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula began offering the device for the first time.

So why should workers’ comp practitioners care? Several reasons.

First, this technology replaces subjective recovery assessments with objective data. Historically, post-operative knee recovery has been tracked through periodic office visits and patient self-reports – the surgeon asks patients how they feel, watches them walk across the room, and measures their range of motion with a goniometer. One Mayo Clinic surgeon described the traditional approach as “very, very subjective.”

The smart knee changes that equation entirely. Now the surgeon has daily biomechanical data showing exactly how the knee is performing between visits. For attorneys and adjusters, this means disputes about whether a claimant has reached maximum medical improvement, whether recovery is progressing on schedule, or whether functional limitations are consistent with the objective findings could increasingly be resolved by implant data rather than dueling medical opinions.

Second, the technology enables earlier intervention when recovery stalls. Orthopedic surgeons at UChicago Medicine have emphasized that the first three months after knee replacement are critical – if patients don’t regain adequate strength and range of motion during that window, those losses can be very difficult to make up later. With the smart implant, a surgeon who sees a sudden drop in step count or a plateau in range of motion can reach out to the patient immediately and adjust the rehabilitation plan. That kind of early intervention could shorten disability durations and reduce overall claim costs.

Third, smart implants reduce the need for frequent in-person follow-up visits. The remote monitoring capability means patients who live far from their treating surgeon may not need to travel as often for routine post-operative checks – a meaningful consideration in workers’ comp, where mileage reimbursement, time off work for medical appointments, and delays in scheduling all add friction and cost to the system.

Fourth, consider the long-term implications. The sensor battery is designed to last at least 10 years, and the device can help detect early signs of implant loosening, abnormal wear patterns, or biomechanical changes that might signal a problem before the patient even notices symptoms. Since workers’ comp carriers often remain responsible for future medical treatment related to the original injury – including revision surgery – early detection of developing problems could mean smaller, less invasive, and less expensive interventions down the road.

Finally – and perhaps most significantly for litigators – think about the evidentiary implications. These implants generate a continuous, objective record of the patient’s functional capacity. Daily step counts. Walking speed. Stride length. Range of motion trends over weeks and months. That data could become powerful evidence in disputes over functional limitations, compliance with prescribed physical therapy, and readiness to return to work. It cuts both ways: it could support a claimant who is doing everything right but still struggling, or it could undermine a claim where the reported limitations don’t match the biomechanical data.

The smart knee is not yet the standard of care for every total knee replacement — cost, patient comfort with the technology, and the need for home Wi-Fi are still limiting factors. But adoption is growing quickly, and as it does, workers’ comp professionals on both sides of the aisle will need to understand what this data means, how to obtain it, and how to use it.

This is one worth watching.