Timing of Adverse Events Following Geriatric Hip Fracture Surgery: A Study of 19,873 Patients in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program

In addition to its clinical implications, this study informs about the interpretation of the many studies of adverse events following hip fracture procedures that have been conducted using retrospective data. Several such studies have relied on inpatient-only administrative databases.^{4,13,14,28-35} As clearly demonstrated in Figure 3, for most of the commonly studied adverse events, inpatient-only databases failed to capture a large proportion of adverse events occurring in the first postoperative month. This highlights a substantial limitation of this commonly published type of study that is often not emphasized in the literature.

There has also been an increase in the publication of studies of adverse events following a hip fracture surgery using the ACS-NSQIP data.^{3,13,14,17,18,21} As discussed, the ACS-NSQIP provides data on 30-days of follow-up. This relatively extended follow-up is often touted as a distinct advantage. However, this study demonstrates that even the 30-day follow-up afforded by the ACS-NSQIP is limited in its ability to enable investigation of the later-occurring adverse events (Figure 1). In particular, the rate of surgical site infection shows little sign of slowing by postoperative day 30. Similarly, the rates of mortality, sepsis, deep vein thrombosis, and urinary tract infection remain substantial.

This study does have limitations. First, as discussed, the duration of follow-up is a limitation of any ACS-NSQIP-based investigation, including this study. Second, the ACS-NSQIP does not capture relevant orthopedic-specific outcomes (eg, screw cutout). In addition, it could not be determined with certainty whether adverse events occurring on the final hospital day occurred prior to or following discharge. However, only a small proportion of most of the adverse events was diagnosed on the final hospital day. Finally, the ACS-NSQIP reports on days from the operation until diagnosis of the adverse event. Although some adverse events are probably diagnosed quickly after they have occurred (eg, myocardial infarction and cardiac arrest), other adverse events may have a delayed diagnosis (eg, surgical site infection may be identified days after its initial occurrence during a follow-up examination). Therefore, it is important to note the subtle distinction between occurrence and diagnosis throughout the article. This article reports on the timing of diagnosis, not actual occurrence.

CONCLUSION

The timing of postoperative adverse events has been understudied in the past. This may be due to an inability of standard single- or multi-institutional investigations to achieve sample sizes adequate to study the less commonly occurring adverse events. Using a relatively new prospective surgical registry, this study provides a far more detailed description of the timing of adverse events following surgery than was previously available. The authors anticipate that these data can be used to inform patient counseling, target clinical surveillance, and direct clinical research. The authors chose to study the timing of postoperative adverse events following geriatric hip fracture surgery because of the high rate of adverse events associated with the procedure. However, future ACS-NSQIP studies may involve characterization of the timing of adverse events following other orthopedic and non-orthopedic procedures.

This paper will be judged for the Resident Writer’s Award.