INTERHOSPITAL VARIATIONS IN LENGTH OF HOSPITAL STAY FOLLOWING HIP FRACTURE

Objective: to investigate differences in length of hospital stay after hip fracture. Design: prospective survey of a consecutive series of p atients admitted with an acute hip fracture and followed-up for 90 day s after admission. Setting: eight hospitals in the East Anglian region . Subjects: 580 patients admitted with a hip fracture. Main outcome me asures: mortality, length of hospital stay place of discharge and tran sfer of patients between hospitals. Results: there was a significant d ifference in the median lengths of hospital stay between centres (rang e 13-28 days). A prolonged hospital stay was associated with increased age, decreased activities of daily living score and delay from surger y to mobilization, Hospitals which had a policy of transferring patien ts to other wards prior to discharge tended to have a longer length of hospital stay, Conclusions: large differences in the duration of inpa tient stay exist between hospitals, Centres which transferred a high p roportion of patients before discharge had a longer length of stay.