An economic evaluation of a fractured hip management program, CHERE Discussion Paper No 8

An evaluation of the Fractured Hip Management Program was conducted, in order to assess its cost effectiveness relative to treatment of these patients without the program. A before-and-after study design was used to identify the impact of the program on the length of hospital stay and outcome, for patients with hip fracture. Program opportunity costs were compared to the opportunity costs of the patient bed-days released by the program. This evaluation demonstrated that the value of resources released as a result of the program exceeded the value of resources consumed by the program by $73,506 in the six month period studied. The financial implications of this result depends on how released resources are used. If bed days released are used to treat other patients financial flows may increase. If beds are closed the financial savings will be considerably lower than the opportunity costs reported in this document. No detrimental effects on patient health were observed and patients were less likely to be admitted to a nursing home under the program.