Enhanced recovery after surgery: An opportunity to improve fractured neck of femur management

Enhanced recovery after surgery: An opportunity to improve fractured neck of femur management

Wainwright TW, Immins T, Middleton (2016) Enhanced recovery after surgery: An opportunity to improve fractured neck of femur management. Ann R Coll Surg Engl. 2016 Sep;98(7):500-6.

What is already known:

Up until now the focus of ERAS has been elective surgery but there is increasing interest in applying the principles to emergency surgery. Fractured neck of femurs are a particularly high risk group of patients, and annual hospital costs are over a billion pounds per year to the NHS.

What this paper adds:

This study looks at Hospital Episode Statistics from 137 different hospitals and examined length of stay and how when case-mixed was adjusted data suggested

that this is due to differences in practice, ie local processes and pathways rather than the nature of the patients treated. The authors suggest that the principles of ERAS could be used to improve the perioperative care of this patient group.

Chris Jones, Guildford.