Inter-hospital 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 patients admitted with an acute hip fracture and followed-up for 90 days after admission. Setting: eight hospitals in the East Anglian region. Subjects: 580 patients admitted with a hip fracture. Main outcome measures: mortality, length of hospital stay, place of discharge and transfer of patients between hospitals. Results: there was a significant difference in the median lengths of hospital stay between centres (range 13-28 days). A prolonged hospital stay was associated with increased age, decreased activities of daily living score and delay from surgery to mobilization. Hospitals which had a policy of transferring patients to other wards prior to discharge tended to have a longer length of hospital stay. Conclusions: large differences in the duration of inpatient stay exist between hospitals. Centres which transferred a high proportion of patients before discharge had a longer length of stay.