Information for Medical Professionals
Out-of-hours surgery does not affect femoral fracture outcome
Out-of-hours operative reduction and fixation in patients suffering from a proximal femoral fracture does not impinge on success rates, it has been claimed.
According to researchers from the Barbant Trauma Centre at St Elisabeth Hospital's Department of Surgery in the Netherlands, there is absolutely no medical evidence to suggest that postponing surgery so that it coincides with standard working hours benefits patients.
In their retrospective cohort study, published in the European Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, they looked at 165 patients who were operated on outside of normal working hours and 123 who underwent the surgery in standard hospital opening times.
They found no difference in the rate of early complications between the two groups, or in the total number of complications during follow-up.
Long hours, however, can have an impact on patient safety, with research published in JAMA showing the medical residents performed worse on a driving simulator after working 80-hour-weeks than they would have done if they had had four cocktails.
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