Shorter acute hospital length of stay in hip fracture patients after surgery predicted by early surgery and mobilization

The use of minimum common data set in the development of the Greek Fragility Hip Fracture Registry in the Greek health care setting: the first year of its pilot implementation

The first Fragility Hip Fracture Registry has been established in Greece. The in-hospital length of stay was 10.8 days and was significantly influenced by the delayed surgical fixation. The increased age, the higher ASA grade, and the male gender influenced negatively the 30-day mortality, which reached 7.5%.

BACKGROUND

The increased incidence of fragility hip fractures constitutes a great challenge to the health care professionals and causes a significant burden on national health care systems around the globe. Fragility hip fracture registries have been used in many countries in order to document the cotemporary situation in each country and to identify potential weaknesses of the local health care systems.

AIM

The aim of the herein study is to present the results of the pilot implementation of the first fragility hip fracture registry in Greece, which was developed by the Greek Chapter of Fragility Fracture Network (FFN Gr), and use the neural networks in the analysis of the results.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Seven orthopaedic departments from six different hospitals in Greece participated in the present pilot study. All fragility hip fractures from September 2022 until December 2023 were prospectively collected and documented using a central database. For this purpose, the 22 points of minimum common data set, proposed by the Global Fragility Fracture Network, with the addition of the 30-day mortality was used.

RESULTS

A total of 1009 patients who sustained a fragility hip fracture were included in the study. The mean age of the cohort was 82.2 ± 8.6 years with the majority of patients being female (72%). Sixty percent (60%) of the patients had an extracapsular hip fracture, with a mean ASA grade 2.6 ± 0.8. Intramedullary nailing and hip hemiarthroplasty were the surgical treatments of choice in the majority of extra- and intra-capsular hip fractures respectively. The mean hospital length of stay of the patients was 10.8 ± 8.5 days, and the 30-day mortality was 7.5%. The multivariant analysis revealed that the age, the ASA grade and the male gender had a significant contribution to the 30-day mortality. The neural network model had a significant under-the-curve predictive value (0.778), with age being the most important predictive factor. The length of stay was significantly influenced only by the delayed surgical fixation (more than 36 h from admission).

CONCLUSIONS

The present pilot study provides evidence that establishing a fragility hip fracture registry in Greece is feasible and demonstrates that the minimum common data set can be used as the base of any new registry. In Greece, patients with a fragility hip fracture stay in the hospital for approximately 11 days and have 7.5% 30-day mortality. Unfortunately, due to the logistics of the public healthcare system, they do not receive surgical fixation in a timely manner, which is a factor that negatively affects their length of in-hospital stay.

Early hip fracture surgery and rehabilitation. How to improve functional quality outcomes. A retrospective study

INTRODUCTION

Hip fractures are one of the major disability causes associated with a high morbidity and mortality rate. Early surgery and stable fixation could be associated with better pain control, possibly lower mortality rates, and early recovery of autonomy.

Association Between Mobilization and Composite Postoperative Complications Following Major Elective Surgery

Importance

Mobilization after surgery is a key component of Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) pathways.

Objective

To evaluate the association between mobilization and a collapsed composite of postoperative complications in patients recovering from major elective surgery as well as hospital length of stay, cumulative pain scores, and 30-day readmission rates.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This retrospective observational study conducted at a single quaternary US referral center included patients who had elective surgery between February 2017 and October 2020. Mobilization was assessed over the first 48 postoperative hours with wearable accelerometers, and outcomes were assessed throughout hospitalization. Patients who had elective surgery lasting at least 2 hours followed by at least 48 hours of hospitalization were included. A minimum of 12 hours of continuous accelerometer monitoring was required without missing confounding variables or key data. Among 16 203 potential participants, 8653 who met inclusion criteria were included in the final analysis. Data were analyzed from February 2017 to October 2020.

Exposures

Amount of mobilization per hour for 48 postoperative hours.

Outcomes

The primary outcome was a composite of myocardial injury, ileus, stroke, venous thromboembolism, pulmonary complications, and all-cause in-hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes included hospital length of stay, cumulative pain scores, and 30-day readmission.

Results

Of 8653 included patients (mean [SD] age, 57.6 [16.0] years; 4535 [52.4%] female), 633 (7.3%) experienced the primary outcome. Mobilization time was a median (IQR) of 3.9 (1.7-7.8) minutes per monitored hour overall, 3.2 (0.9-7.4) in patients who experienced the primary outcome, and 4.1 (1.8-7.9) in those who did not. There was a significant association between postoperative mobilization and the composite outcome (hazard ratio [HR], 0.75; 95% CI, 0.67-0.84; P < .001) for each 4-minute increase in mobilization. Mobilization was associated with an estimated median reduction in the duration of hospitalization by 0.12 days (95% CI, 0.09-0.15; P < .001) for each 4-minute increase in mobilization. The were no associations between mobilization and pain score or 30-day readmission.

Conclusions and Relevance

In this study, mobilization measured by wearable accelerometers was associated with fewer postoperative complications and shorter hospital length of stay.

[Result of the update of the clinical pathway for hip fracture in the elderly at a university hospital in Madrid]

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Orthogeriatric management with clinical pathways (CP) in hip fracture (HF) has been shown to be superior to other models. We studied whether updating the CP, through prioritization of admission and surgery, improvement in the prevention and treatment of delirium, management of anticoagulants and antiplatelet agents and the use of perioperative peripheral nerve block, modifies surgical delay, stay, readmissions, mortality, suffering delirium and functional status at discharge.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

A retrospective observational study of unicenter cohorts of 468 patients with HF, 220 from 2016 (old VC) and 248 from 2019 (new VC). The variables are: intervention in the first 48hours, surgical delay (hours), stay (days), stay less than 15 days, delirium, functional loss at discharge (Barthel prefracture scale less Barthel scale at discharge), readmission at one month, and mortality at admission, month and year.

RESULTS

Median age: 87.0 [interquartile range 8.0], mostly women (76.7%). Significantly, with the new VC, there was a greater number of patients operated on in the first 48hours (27,7% vs 36,8% p=0.036), less surgical delay (72.5 [47,5-110,5] vs 64.0 [42,0-88,0] p<0.001), shorter stay (10,0 [7,0-13,0] vs 8,0 [6,0-11,0] p<0.001), greater number of discharges in 15 days (78,2% vs 91,5% p<0.001), lower delirium (54,1% vs 43,5% p=0.023). No significant changes in readmissions, functional loss at discharge, mortality at admission, 3 months or year.

CONCLUSIONS

Updating the VC brings benefits to the patient (less surgical delay, equal functional status at discharge with fewer days of admission) and benefits in management (lower admission) without modifying mortality.

A cost analysis of treating postoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures following hip replacement surgery in a UK tertiary referral centre

AIM

This study aims to evaluate costs associated with periprosthetic femoral fracture (PFF) treatment at a UK tertiary referral centre.

METHODS

This study included 128 consecutive PFFs admitted from 02/04/2014-19/05/2020. Financial data were provided by Patient Level Information and Costing Systems. Primary outcomes were median cost and margin. Secondary outcomes were length of stay, blood transfusion, critical care, 30-day readmission, 2-year local complication, 2-year systemic complication, 2-year reoperation and 30-day mortality rates. Statistical comparisons were made between treatment type. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05.

RESULTS

Across the cohort, median cost was £15,644.00 (IQR £11,031.00-£22,255.00) and median loss was £3757.50 (£599.20-£8296.20). The highest costs were ward stay (£3994.00, IQR £1,765.00-£7,013.00), theatre utilisation (£2962.00, IQR £0.00-£4,286.00) and overheads (£1705.10, IQR £896.70-£2432.20). Cost (£17,455.00 [IQR, £13,194.00-£23,308.00] versus £7697.00 [IQR £3871.00-£10,847.00], p<0.001) and loss (£4890.00 [IQR £1308.00-£10,009.00] versus £1882.00 [IQR £313.00-£3851.00], p = 0.02) were greater in the operative versus the nonoperative group. There was no difference in cost (£17,634.00 [IQR £12,965.00-£22,958.00] versus £17,399.00 [IQR £13,394.00-£23,404.00], p = 0.98) or loss (£5374.00 [IQR £1950.00-£10,143.00] versus £3860.00 [IQR -£95.50-£7601.00], p = 0.21) between the open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) and revision groups. More patients required blood transfusion in the operative versus the nonoperative group (17 [17.9%] versus 0 [0.0%], p = 0.009). There was no difference in any clinical outcome between the ORIF and revision groups (p>0.05).

CONCLUSION

PFF treatment costs are high with inadequate reimbursement from NHS tariff. Work is needed to address this disparity and reduce hospital costs. Cost should not be used to decide between ORIF and revision surgery.

Predictive model for prolonged length of hospital stay in patients with osteoporotic femoral neck fracture: A 5-year retrospective study

Prolonged length of stay (LOS) in osteoporotic femoral neck fracture patients increased the hospital care cost and demonstrated in-hospital complications. This study aimed to develop an ease-of use predictive model of prolonged LOS in osteoporotic femoral neck fracture patients. In this 5-year retrospective study, the medical charts of 255 patients admitted to hospital with an osteoporotic femoral neck fracture resulting from a simple fall from January 2014 to December 2018 were reviewed. Multivariable fractional polynomials (MFP) algorithms was applied to develop the predictive model from candidate predictors of prolonged LOS. The discrimination performance of predictive model was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC). Internal validity was assessed using bootstrapping. From 289 patients who were hospitalized with an osteoporotic fracture of femoral neck throughout this study, 255 (88%) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. There was 54.90% (140 of 255 patients) of patients who had prolonged LOS. The predictors of the predictive model were age, BMI, ASA score class 3 or 4, arthroplasty and time from injury to surgery. The area under ROC curve of the model was 0.83 (95% confidence interval 0.77-0.88). Internal validation with bootstrap re-sampling revealed an optimism of -0.002 (range -0.300-0.296) with an estimated shrinkage factor of 0.907 for the predictive model. The current predictive model developed from preoperative predictors which had a good discriminative ability to differentiate between length of hospitalization less than 14 days and prolonged LOS in osteoporotic femoral neck patients. This model can be applied as ease-of use calculator application to help patients, their families and clinicians make appropriate decisions in terms of treatment planning, postoperative care program, and cost-effectiveness before patients receiving the definitive treatments.

Orthogeriatric Multidisciplinary Co-Management Across Acute and Rehabilitation Care Improves Length of Stay, Functional Outcomes and Complications in Geriatric Hip Fracture Patients

Introduction

As the global number of geriatric hip fracture cases continues to proliferate, a newly developed orthogeriatric co-management multidisciplinary care model has been implemented since November 2018 to meet further increases in demand. Our objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of the new pathway in improving the clinical outcomes of fragility hip fractures.

Methods

The data of geriatric hip fracture patients from 1 April 2018 till 30 October 2018 was collected as the conventional orthopaedic care model (pre-orthogeriatric care model) to compare with data from the orthogeriatric co-management model, 1 Feb 2019 till 31 August 2019. Clinical outcomes were analyzed between the groups, with the efficiency of the programme reflected in the total length of stay in acute and convalescent hospitals.

Results

194 patients were recruited to the conventional group and 207 were recruited to the orthogeriatric group, 290 patients (72.3%) were female. The mean (SD) patient age was 84.2 (7.9) years. The median length of stay in the acute and rehabilitation hospitals decreased by 1 day and 2 days, respectively (P=.001). The orthogeriatric group was associated with a higher Modified Barthel Index score on discharge from the rehabilitation hospital and more patients in the orthogeriatric collaboration group received osteoporosis medication prescription within one year after the index fracture. There was no difference in the 28-days unplanned readmission rate, complication rate, mortality rate or Elderly Mobility Scale scores on discharge from the rehabilitation hospital between the two groups.

Conclusion

Orthogeriatric collaboration has been proven to be effective in terms of a decreased length of stay in both the acute and the rehabilitation hospitals.