The impact on time between injury and semi-acute surgery for hand fractures after virtual fracture clinic implementation-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

The impact on time between injury and semi-acute surgery for hand fractures after virtual fracture clinic implementation

Published:2024-08-21 Issue: Volume: Page:
ISSN:1753-1934
Container-title:Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume)
language:en
Short-container-title:J Hand Surg Eur Vol

Author:

Salentijn Dorien A.¹²^ORCID,Willinge Gijs J.A.²,Dijkgraaf Marcel G.W.¹³,van Veen Ruben N.²

Affiliation:

1. Amsterdam Public Health, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2. Department of Trauma Surgery, OLVG, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

3. Department of Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam UMC – University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract

The aim of this before-and-after study was to evaluate the implementation of a virtual fracture clinic (VFC) on the time between injury and surgery in patients presenting with a phalangeal or metacarpal fracture and in need of semi-acute surgical treatment. Between 1 January and 30 September 2018 (pre-VFC) and in the same period in 2022 (VFC), 101 and 113 patients were included, respectively. Before VCF implementation, the time between injury and surgery was 8.9 days (95% confidence interval [CI]: 8.1 to 9.6), while after VCF implementation it was 7.6 days (95% CI: 7.0 to 8.3). In 2018, 7% of operations were unacceptably delayed beyond 14 days from injury, which was reduced to 5% in 2022, despite patient-presentation delays of up to 10 days. VFC implementation was associated with a reduction in time until semi-acute surgery for phalangeal or metacarpal fractures and improved the quality of semi-acute surgery planning. Level of evidence: Level III

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Link

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/17531934241268976

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