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The following is a summary of “Impact of emergency department boarding on patients outcomes in hip fractures,” published in the September 2024 issue of Emergency Medicine by Crawford et al.

Boarding time in the Emergency Department (ED) is a matter for patients with hip fractures. Improving emergent care to reduce surgical delay for hip fracture patients is a priority.

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the effect of ED boarding on patient outcomes with surgical hip fractures.

They investigated patients with hip fractures, presented at the ED of a Level 1 trauma center between January 2020 and December 2021. Patients were divided into 4 quartiles based on boarding time. Study outcomes—hospital length of stay, time to surgery, ICU visit post-operative, total blood products, in-hospital complications, discharge disposition, in-hospital mortality, and 30-day readmission—were compared with these quartiles.

The results showed similar endpoints among 4 quartiles except for time to surgery, which was contrasted, increasing from 20.39 to 29.03 h (P< 0.001) from the first to fourth quartile.

They concluded that despite extended ED boarding times, expediting surgery according to guidelines improves adverse outcomes, highlighting the importance of system processes in optimizing patient care.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S073567572400295X