Hemiarthroplasty in hip fracture care: effects of surgical volume on short-term outcome.

In 1992, the Agency of Health Care Administration in Tallahassee, Florida started releasing, as part of the discharge information, the names of the treating physician along with the clinical data. This information was used to assess the effects of volume on the short-term outcome of hemiarthroplasty surgery in hip fracture care as a function of surgeons and hospitals in the state of Florida, during the year 1992. A total of 5,604 cases were available for study. Analysis of the data showed that the average inhospital mortality rate was 4.3%. The average length of stay was 11.2 days. After arbitrarily dividing the doctors into three case volume groups (low, medium, high), results showed that surgeons with a low volume of arthroplasty cases (less than 10 per year) had a statistically significant higher average length of stay and inhospital charges when compared with the other two case volume groups.