INTRODUCTION Hip fracture is an important cause of morbidity and mortality among elderly patients worldwide. It poses a particular challenge for healthcare systems with limited financial and human resources. OBJECTIVES… Click to show full abstract
INTRODUCTION Hip fracture is an important cause of morbidity and mortality among elderly patients worldwide. It poses a particular challenge for healthcare systems with limited financial and human resources. OBJECTIVES To assess factors associated with the length of hospital stay and in-hospital mortality, focusing on the admission to surgery time. The secondary goal was an assessment of temporal trends between 2010-2011 and 2019 in admission to surgery time interval. PATIENTS AND METHODS Cross-sectional study enrolling patients at the age of ≥65 years, undergoing surgery for hip fracture between January 2010 and October 2011 in 12 Polish hospitals. Demographic, clinical data, dates of hospital admission and surgery as well as information about in-hospital death were gathered. We additionally searched the databases of the same 12 hospitals for patients hospitalized due to hip fracture between January and June 2019 and recorded the dates of admission and surgery. RESULTS We included 381 patients undergoing surgery in 2010-2011 and 761 patients hospitalized in 2019. In a multivariable analysis, including age, sex and diagnosis of dementia, we observed association between admission to surgery time and higher in-hospital mortality and longer hospital stay. There was a decrease in proportion of patients undergoing surgery within 2 days from admission (52.8% vs. 44.3%, p=0.007) between years 2010-2011 and in 2019. CONCLUSIONS Among patients undergoing surgery for hip fracture, in-hospital mortality and length of hospitalization were associated with the duration of admission to surgery time. We observed an alarming trend towards the increase of admission-surgery interval.
               
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