Improvements in pain relief, handling time and pressure ulcers through internal audits of hip fracture patients

The aim of this project was to improve the outcome of hip fracture patients by optimizing preoperative pain relief, diminishing the time from admission to operation and reducing the occurrence of pressure ulcers. A retrospective study of all medical records of hip fracture patients from the last 4 months in 1998 was compared with prospective registrations during the same period in 1999 and 2000 after the introduction of quality improvements. The number of patients who waited for more than 1 hour to get pain relief was almost halved after improvements. In 1998, close to half of the patients had to wait more than 24 hours for an operation. After attention was given to quality improvements, 36% of the patients in 1999 and 34% of the patients in 2000 had to wait more than 24 hours. In addition, 18% of the patients in 1999 and 24% of the patients in 2000 vs. 11% in 1998 were operated on within 12 had to wait more than 24 hours. Pressure ulcers were considerably reduced. In total, 19% of the patients in 1998, 8% in 1999 and 4.5% in 2000 had pressure ulcers at discharge from the hospital. The outcome for hip fracture patients was improved through attention to quality improvements with all staff involved and focused on these patients.