The majority of deaths on an orthopaedic service occur in elderly patients with hip fractures, while mortality for other orthopaedic admissions is very low.
Hip fracture patients account for most orthopaedic mortality; observational data leaves open whether targeted pathways improve survival.
Forty-nine (68 per cent.) of the deaths occurred in elderly patients with fractures about the hip joint. 2. Excluding those patients with fractures at the hip, there were 4,480 patients admitted. Twenty-three died during hospitalization, a mortality rate of 0.51 per cent. Four deaths were actual postoperative deaths, a mortality rate of 0.086 per cent. 3. When patients who are aged, debilitated, diabetic, with cardiac disease, ur presenting malignant tumors are hospitalized, some deaths are expected. 4. Reduction of hospital mortality may be achieved by special attention to nutritional problems, good surgical judgment and technique, the use of antibiotics, the judicious use of anticoagulants, and the meticulous care of coexisting medical and surgical problems.
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CLEVELAND et al. (1951) studied this question.
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