Modelling the effect of operative delay on a trauma hip fracture ward at a large teaching hospital

Abstract

The most common reason for an elderly person to be admitted to an acute orthopaedic ward is hip fracture. Many patients endure a considerable delay between admission to hospital and commencement of surgery. We primarily investigated the impact of delay on hospital length of stay, grouping by American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) grade, at a large teaching hospital. Using these results, a simulation model was built to investigate the impact of delay and a number of what-if scenarios were tested to demonstrate the effects of reducing this delay. We also calculated future age-specific admission rates and have demonstrated how the additional burden of a rise in admissions can be partially relieved by an improvement in efficiency.