Weekend Admission of Intracapsular Femoral Neck Fractures Not Associated With a Greater Rate of Mortality or Morbidity

Impact of preoperative echocardiographic delay on timing of hip fracture surgery in elderly patients

Objectives

Early surgery is recommended for hip fractures in elderly patients. This study was performed to evaluate factors contributing to delayed surgery and associated outcomes in a secondary hospital in Japan with a rehabilitation centre.

Methods

We retrospectively reviewed the records of 895 patients aged >50 years [median age, 86 (81-91) years] treated for hip fractures at our institution from 2016 to 2020. We defined surgical delay as surgery performed >48 h after admission. We evaluated several risk factors for surgical delay and associated outcomes: mortality, length of hospital stay and walking status.

Results

Binomial logistic regression analysis showed that several factors, including preoperative echocardiographic delay (odds ratio, 9.38; 95% confidence interval, 5.95-15.28), were risk factors for surgical delay. In the multiple regression analyses, surgical delay was a significant risk factor for a longer hospital stay (partial regression coefficient, 6.99; 95% confidence interval, 3.67-10.31).

Conclusions

Our findings indicated that preoperative echocardiographic delay was one of the risk factors for surgical delay of hip fractures in elderly patients. Surgical delay was a risk factor for a longer hospital stay, including rehabilitation.

Admission on weekends does not increase mortality after hip fracture: a meta-analysis of 1.4 million patients

BACKGROUND

The "weekend" effect resulting in increased complication rates in patients admitted on weekends has been noted in many diseases.

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to collate adjusted data from published studies to assess if admission on weekends as compared to weekdays increases mortality rates in hip fracture patients.

METHODS

Databases of PubMed, CENTRAL, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase were searched up to 31st December 2022 for studies comparing mortality between weekend versus weekday admission of hip fracture patients. Adjusted hazard ratios (HR) were pooled.

RESULTS

Fourteen studies including 1,487,986 patients were analyzed. Most studies were from Europe and North America. Results showed no difference in mortality rates of hip fracture patients admitted on weekends versus weekdays (HR: 1.00 95% 0.96, 1.04 I2 = 75%). There was no publication bias and results did not change on the leave-one-out analysis. Subgroup analysis based on sample size and treatment did not change outcomes.

CONCLUSION

This meta-analysis has shown no apparent weekend effect in cases of hip fractures. Patients admitted on weekends had similar mortality rates as compared to those admitted on weekdays. Current data has high heterogeneity and is mostly from developed countries.

Is There a "Black Friday" for Geriatric Hip Fracture Surgery?

OBJECTIVES

Reports show an increase in the short-term mortality rates of hip fracture patients admitted on weekends. However, there are few studies on whether there is a similar effect in Friday admissions of geriatric hip fracture patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of Friday admission on mortality and clinical outcomes in elderly patients with hip fractures.

METHODS

A retrospective cohort study was performed at a single orthopaedic trauma centre and included all patients who underwent hip fracture surgery between January 2018 and December 2021. Patient characteristics, including age, sex, BMI, fracture type, time of admission, ASA grade, comorbidities, and laboratory examinations, were collected. Data pertaining to surgery and hospitalization were extracted from the electronic medical record system and tabulated. The corresponding follow-up was performed. The Shapiro-Wilk test was applied to evaluate the distributions of all continuous variables for normality. The overall data were analyzed by Student's t test or the Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables and the chi-square test for categorical variables, as appropriate. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to further test for the independent influencing factors of prolonged time to surgery.

RESULTS

A total of 596 patients were included, and 83 patients (13.9%) were admitted on Friday. There was no evidence supporting that Friday admission had an effect on mortality and outcomes, including length of stay, total hospital costs and postoperative complications. However, the patients admitted on Friday had delayed surgery. Then, patients were regrouped into two groups according to whether surgery was delayed, and 317 patients (53.2%) underwent delayed surgery. The multivariate analysis showed that younger age (p = 0.014), Friday admission (p < 0.001), ASA classification III-IV (p = 0.019), femoral neck fracture (p = 0.002), time from injury to admission more than 24 h (p = 0.025), and diabetes (p = 0.023) were risk factors for delayed surgery.

CONCLUSIONS

Mortality and adverse outcome rates for elderly hip fracture patients admitted on Friday were similar to those admitted at other time periods. However, Friday admission was identified as one of the risk factors for delayed surgery.

Is There a "Weekend Effect" in Intertrochanteric Fracture Surgery?

INTRODUCTION

Numerous studies reported poorer outcomes for patients who were admitted at weekends or off-hour, which relates to the underlying concept called the "weekend effect." We aimed to assess the effect of adverse outcomes in older patients with intertrochanteric fracture surgery.

METHODS

A retrospective cohort study of patients aged ≥65 years with intertrochanteric fracture surgery. Data were collected from computerized medical records and all patients had a long-term follow-up. The association between weekend effect with adverse outcomes and factors for all-cause mortality was studied by 3-group comparison, Spearman and partial correlation analysis, univariate analysis, and multivariate Cox proportional-hazard model.

RESULTS

Our results showed no evidence supporting the existence of a weekend effect on adverse outcomes, including mortality rates (p = 0.950, log-rank), length of hospital stay, total hospital costs, rate and volume of transfusion, visual analog scale score, Harris Hip Score, and specific complications (all p > 0.05), except for an average of 0.5 days longer surgical delay found in patients admitted on Fridays relative to other days (p = 0.013). Instead, only age group (with a 10-year interval, HR 1.43, 1.28-1.59 95% CI, p < 0.001) and surgical delay (HR 1.05, 1.02-1.07 95% CI, p < 0.001) were identified as significantly associated with all-cause mortality.

CONCLUSIONS

Older patients with intertrochanteric fracture surgery have similar mortality and adverse outcomes rates when admitted on weekends or holidays compared with weekdays. Our findings suggest that collaborative multidisciplinary team care seems both effective and efficient in the management of older patients with intertrochanteric fractures on any day of the week.

Effect of weekend admission on geriatric hip fractures

BACKGROUND

The care discrepancy for patients presenting to a hospital on the weekend relative to the work week is well documented. With respect to hip fractures, however, there is no consensus about the presence of a so-called “weekend effect”. This study sought to determine the effects, if any, of weekend admission on care of geriatric hip fractures admitted to a large tertiary care hospital. It was hypothesized that geriatric hip fracture patients admitted on a weekend would have longer times to medical optimization and surgery and increased complication and mortality rates relative to those admitted on a weekday.

AIM

To determine if weekend admission of geriatric hip fractures is associated with poor outcome measures and surgical delay.

METHODS

A retrospective chart review of operative geriatric hip fractures treated from 2015-2017 at a large tertiary care hospital was conducted. Two cohorts were compared: patients who arrived at the emergency department on a weekend, and those that arrived at the emergency department on a weekday. Primary outcome measures included mortality rate, complication rate, transfusion rate, and length of stay. Secondary outcome measures included time from emergency department arrival to surgery, time from emergency department arrival to medical optimization, and time from medical optimization to surgery.

RESULTS

There were no statistically significant differences in length of stay (P = 0.2734), transfusion rate (P = 0.9325), or mortality rate (P = 0.3460) between the weekend and weekday cohorts. Complication rate was higher in patients who presented on a weekend compared to patients who presented on a weekday (13.3% vs 8.3%; P = 0.044). Time from emergency department arrival to medical optimization (22.7 h vs 20.0 h; P = 0.0015), time from medical optimization to surgery (13.9 h vs 10.8 h; P = 0.0172), and time from emergency department arrival to surgery (42.7 h vs 32.5 h; P < 0.0001) were all significantly longer in patients who presented to the hospital on a weekend compared to patients who presented to the hospital on a weekday.

CONCLUSION

This study provided insight into the “weekend effect” for geriatric hip fractures and found that day of presentation has a clinically significant impact on delivered care.