High variability in hip fracture post-acute care and dementia patients having worse chances of receiving rehabilitation: an analysis of population-based data from Estonia

Patient-related healthcare disparities in the quality of acute hip fracture care: a 10-year nationwide population-based cohort study

OBJECTIVES

To characterise and quantify possible patient-related disparities in hip fracture care including temporal changes.

DESIGN

Population-based cohort study.

SETTING

All Danish hospitals treating patients with hip fracture.

PARTICIPANTS

60 275 hip fracture patients from 2007 to 2016.

INTERVENTIONS

Quality of care was defined as fulfilment of eligible care process measures for the individual patient recommended by an expert panel. Using yearly logistic regression models, we predicted the individual patient's probability for receiving high-quality care, resulting in a distribution of adjusted probabilities based on age, sex, comorbidity, fracture type, education, family mean income, migration status, cohabitation status, employment status, nursing home residence and type of municipality. Based on the distribution, we identified best-off patients (ie, the 10% of patients with the highest probability) and worst-off patients (ie, the 10% of patients with the lowest probability). We evaluated disparities in quality of care by measuring the distance in fulfilment of outcomes between the best-off and worst-off patients.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

The primary outcome was fulfilment of all-or-none, defined as receiving all relevant process measures. Secondary outcomes were fulfilment of the individual process measures including preoperative optimisation, early surgery, early mobilisation, assessment of pain, basic mobility, nutritional risk and need for antiosteoporotic medication, fall prevention and a postdischarge rehabilitation programme.

RESULTS

The proportion of patients receiving high-quality care varied over time for both best-off and worst-off patients. The absolute difference in percentage points between the best-off and worst-off patients for receiving all-or-none of the eligible process measures was 12 (95% CI 6 to 18) in 2007 and 23 (95% CI 19 to 28) in 2016. Disparities were consistent for a range of care processes, including assessment of pain, mobilisation within 24 hours, assessment of need for antiosteoporotic medication and nutritional risk assessment.

CONCLUSIONS

Disparity of care between best-off and worst-off patients remained substantial over time.

Nonoperative hip fracture management practices and patient survival compared to surgical care: an analysis of Estonian population-wide data

A notable proportion of hip fracture patients receive nonoperative management, but such practice is seldom analysed. Although highly variable reasons underpin hip fracture nonoperative management, none of these practices conclusively outweigh the superiority of operative management. Nonoperative management should be only considered when surgery is not an option.

PURPOSE

Reasons underpinning hip fracture (HF) nonoperative management (NOM) are seldom analysed. This study aims to identify the reasons behind NOM and assess the accuracy of these decisions using these patients' survival compared with those treated with operative management (OM).

METHODS

This is a retrospective cohort study based on population-wide administrative health data, including patients aged ≥ 50 with an index HF diagnosis between January 2009 and September 2017. NOM patients were subgrouped according to their expected prognoses, and their survival up to 36 months was compared with those treated surgically.

RESULTS

From a total of 11,210 included patients, 6.8% (766) received NOM. Varying reasons lead to NOM, dividing them further into five distinct subgroups: (I) 46% NOM decision due to poor expected prognosis with OM; (II) 29% NOM decision due to poor expected prognosis for mixed reasons; (III) 15% NOM decision due to good expected prognosis with NOM; (IV) 8.0% NOM decision due to patient's refusal of OM; and (V) 1.3% NOM decision due to occult HF. Only poor prognosis and patients who refused OM (I, II, IV) had worse survival than OM patients. However, a relatively high proportion of the poor prognosis patients survived 1 year (29%).

CONCLUSION

Although there was high variability in reasons underpinning HF NOM, none of these practices conclusively outweigh OM's superiority. NOM should be considered with utmost care and only for patients for whom OM is out of the question - well-defined medical unfitness or carefully considered refusal by understanding the increased mortality risk.

Causal variation modelling identifies large inter- and intra-regional disparities in physical therapy offered to hip fracture patients in Estonia

PURPOSE

An essential measure of hip fracture (HF) rehabilitation, the amount of physical therapy (PT) used per patient, has been severely understudied. This study (1) evaluates post-acute PT use after HF in Estonia, (2) presents causal variation modelling for examining inter- and intra-regional disparities, and (3) analyses its temporal trends.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This retrospective cohort study used validated population-wide health data, including patients aged ≥50 years, with an index HF diagnosed between January 2009 and September 2017. Patients' 6-month PT use was analysed and reported separately for acute and post-acute phases.

RESULTS

While most of the included 11,461 patients received acute rehabilitation, only 40% of them received post-acute PT by a median of 6 h. Analyses based on measures of central tendency revealed 2.5 to 2.6-fold inter-regional differences in HF post-acute rehabilitation. Variation modelling additionally detected intra-regional disparities, showing imbalances in the fairness of allocating local rehabilitation resources between a county's patients.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates the advantages of causal variation modelling for identifying inter- and intra-regional disparities in rehabilitation. The analyses revealed persisting large multi-level disparities and accompanying overall inaccessibility of PT in HF rehabilitation in Estonia, showing an urgent need for system-wide improvements.Implications for rehabilitationThis study demonstrates the advantages of causal variation modelling for identifying inter- and intra-regional disparities in rehabilitation, using an essential outcome measure - used physical therapy hours.The study revealed large multi-level disparities and overall inaccessibility of physical therapy in hip fracture rehabilitation in Estonia, showing an urgent need for system-wide improvements.This study expands our knowledge on unstudied topics - hip fracture post-acute care and long-term physical therapy use.This regional analysis provides the first evidence-based regional-level basis for improving the rehabilitation system in Estonia.