Does delaying surgery for "healthy" hip fracture patients have increased complications and mortality?

Abstract

Introduction: Surgical delay is one of the risk factors for mortality and morbidity in patients with HF. One of the causes of delay is due to admission on Thursday-Friday, weekends, holidays or previous periods. The final objective of this study is to analyze administrative-organizational delay in complication and mortality rates.

Material and methods: A total of 607 cases of surgically operated hip fractures were analyzed. Two groups were established, one of them operated on in < 48 h (ND group) and the other surgically delayed for administrative organizational reasons (AA group). Demographic variables related to treatment and fracture were analyzed in both groups, as well as the rates of surgical wound complications, general complications and mortality rate in the first 30 days, in the first year and more than one year after surgery.

Results: We observed a surgical wound seroma and staining rate of 15.7% in the AA group and 9.6% in the ND group; and a surgical wound surface infection rate of 1.9% in the AA group and 0.8% in the ND group (p = 0.275). General complications occurred in 34.4% (AA group) and 29% (ND group). The 30-day mortality rate was 4.8% in the AA group and 1.9% in the ND group (p = 0.081).

Conclusion: We found no statistically significant differences in patients delayed for administrative reasons in terms of mortality and surgical wound and general complication rates. Although the proportion of surgical wound complications and 30-day mortality was higher in the AA group versus the ND group.

Keywords: Complications; Hip fracture; Mortality; Surgical delay; Weekend.