Abstract
Background:
Discharge to an inpatient care facility (skilled-care or rehabilitation) has been shown to be associated with adverse outcomes following elective total joint arthroplasties. Current evidence with regard to hip fracture surgeries remains limited.
Methods:
The 2015–2016 ACS-NSQIP database was used to query for patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty and open reduction internal fixation for hip fractures. A total of 15,655 patients undergoing hip fracture surgery were retrieved from the database. Inpatient facility discharge included discharges to skilled-care facilities and inpatient rehabilitation units. Multi-variate regression analysis was used to assess for differences in 30-day post-discharge outcomes between home-discharge versus inpatient care facility discharge, while adjusting for baseline differences between the 2 study populations.
Results:
A total of 12,568 (80.3%) patients were discharged to an inpatient care facility. Discharge to an inpatient care facility was associated with higher odds of any complication (OR 2.03 [95% CI, 1.61–2.55]; p < 0.001), wound complications (OR 1.79 [95% CI, 1.10–2.91]; p = 0.019), cardiac complications (OR 4.49 [95% CI, 1.40–14.40]; p = 0.012), respiratory complication (OR 2.29 [95% CI, 1.39–3.77]; p = 0.001), stroke (OR 7.67 [95% CI, 1.05–56.29]; p = 0.045, urinary tract infections (OR 2.30 [95% CI, 1.52–3.48]; p < 0.001), unplanned re-operations (OR 1.37 [95% CI, 1.03–1.82]; p = 0.029) and readmissions (OR 1.38 [95% CI, 1.16–1.63]; p < 0.001) following discharge.
Conclusion:
Discharge to inpatient care facilities versus home following hip fracture surgery is associated with higher odds of post-discharge complications, re-operations and readmissions. These results stress the importance of careful patient selection prior to discharge to inpatient care facilities to minimise the risk of complications.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.