Identification of indicators to assess the variation in Fragile Hip Fractures (FHF) recovery: A European pathway association study

12^th International Conference on ORTHOPEDICS, OSTEOPOROSIS & TRAUMA

November 13-14, 2019 | London, UK

An Sermon

University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium

ScientificTracks Abstracts: J Orthop Trauma Surg Rel Res

Abstract :

Statement of the problem: Fragile Hip Fractures (FHF) have a devastating impact on the elderly, are regarded as a major public health concern and remain to be associated with excessive short-and long-term mortality. McGlynns’ landmark study showed that only 22.8% of recommended care was given to hip fracture patients. Surprisingly, there remains to be heterogeneity in adherence to clinical guidelines within and between hospitals, resulting in suboptimal patient care and patient outcomes throughout Europe even though it has been shown that optimal FHF care can result in improved patient outcomes and cost-savings. In addition, tailored multidisciplinary clinical pathways and programmes can improve patient outcomes. Nonetheless its potential to improve outcomes and adherence to guidelines, it remains unclear why improved compliance to evidence based key interventions does not always lead to improved patient outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to assess the variation within and between European organization that provide care for FHF patients.

Methods: A multimethod design was used by 15 European hospitals involved in FHF care, to develop a set of FHF care pathway indicators. The development process is supervised by the European Pathway Association.

Findings: A literature review was presented during a 2-day expert panel in May 2019. The outcome of this consensus meeting is a set of 16 process and 8 structure indicators. These indicators will help the teams in understanding, benchmarking and enhancing the rapid recovery pathway for FHF. The next step is a retrospective analysis of 450 patient records (30 in each of the 15 participating centres). This analysis will provide the necessary data to benchmark the organization of care within and between these 15 European trauma centres. Based on the feedback report the trauma centres will be able to further improve their organization of care.

Biography :

An. Sermon graduated as a general surgeon in 2004 and as trauma surgeon in 2006 at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. From 2006 on, she has been working in the Department of Traumatology of the University Hospitals Leuven mainly performing hip and periprosthetic fracture surgery. She obtained her PhD at KU Leuven in 2014 entitled “Addressing the challenge of hip fracture fixation and prevention in old age - Preclinical and clinical studies assessing the osteoporotic femoral head” including biomechanical studies on the technique of implant augmentation. Today, both her research and clinical activities are focused on orthogeriatric fracture care. She has led numerous courses on this topic all over Europe. Within the European Pathway Association, she performed an importanceperformance analysis showing guideline adherence for the treatment of geriatric hip fracture patients is remarkably suboptimal. Further research is aimed at defining intervention strategies that will improve patient outcomes.

E-mail: an.sermon@uzleuven.be