TIME TO SURGERY AND 30-DAY MAJOR COMPLICATIONS FOLLOWING HIP FRACTURE: TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE

Hip fractures are among the most common orthopaedic injuries and represent a growing burden on healthcare as our population ages. Despite improvements in preoperative optimisation, surgical technique and postoperative care, complication rates remain high. Time to surgery is one of the few variables that may be influenced by the medical team. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of time to surgery on mortality and major complications following surgical fixation of hip fractures.Utilising the American College of Surgeons' National Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database, we analysed all hip fractures (femoral neck, inter-trochanteric, and sub-trochanteric) treated from 2011 to 2013 inclusively. We divided patients into three groups based on time to surgery: less than one day (<24h), one to two days (24–48h), and two to five days (48–120h). Baseline characteristics were compared between groups and a multivariate analysis performed to compare 30-day mortality and major complications (r...