4.6 Article

Effect of an Inpatient Geriatric Consultation Team on Functional Outcome, Mortality, Institutionalization, and Readmission Rate in Older Adults with Hip Fracture: A Controlled Trial

Journal

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY
Volume 59, Issue 7, Pages 1299-1308

Publisher

WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2011.03488.x

Keywords

geriatric consultation; inpatient; elderly; hip fracture

Funding

  1. Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders, Belgium

Ask authors/readers for more resources

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effect of an inpatient geriatric consultation team (IGCT) on end points of interest in people with hip fracture: length of stay, functional status, mortality, new nursing home admission, and hospital readmission. DESIGN: Controlled trial based on assignment by convenience. SETTING: Trauma ward in a university hospital. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred seventy-one people with hip fracture aged 65 and older. INTERVENTION: Participants were assigned to a multi-disciplinary geriatric intervention (n=94) or usual care (n=77) during hospitalization after hip fracture. MEASUREMENTS: End points were functional status, length of stay, mortality, new nursing home admission, and hospital readmission 6 weeks, 4 months, and 12 months after surgery. RESULTS: Mean length of stay was 11.1 +/- 5.1 days in the intervention group and 12.4 +/- 8.5 days in the control groups (P=.24). Complete adherence to IGCT recommendations was 56.8%. A significant benefit of intervention on functional status in univariate analyses (P=.02) 8 days after surgery disappeared in a linear mixed model. Participants with dementia had better functional status in a linear mixed model than those without (P=.03), but this effect was no longer significant after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. After 6 weeks, 4 months, and 12 months, no between-group differences could be documented for mortality, new nursing home admission, or readmission rate. CONCLUSION: This trial could not document functional benefits of an IGCT intervention in people with hip fracture. More research is needed to investigate whether a more-intensive approach with more-direct control over patient management, more-specific recommendations, and more-intense education would be effective. J Am Geriatr Soc 59:1299-1308, 2011.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available