Abstract
Our local health network for hip fracture shares a web-based system of liaison critical pathway (LCP). Eight hundred seventy patients operated for hip fracture at 3 surgical hospitals and transferred to other 11 rehabilitation institutes between April 2004 and December 2009 were enrolled into the LCP. We calculated the entry rates of patients' data to the LCP at rehabilitation hospitals. Postoperative hospitalization days and costs were also evaluated. The rates of data entry have been 100% for the first 3 years and decreased to about 70% during the later 3 years. The postoperative hospitalization decreased from 123 days in 2004 to 95 days in 2006, and the average hospitalization following 3 years was about 90 days. Similarly, the hospital costs decreased by 510,000 yen during these first 3 years. During six-year operation of the LCP, the postoperative hospitalization days decreased and the hospital cost performance improved. While, decreasing the LCP entry rates prompts us to develop a new system to simply record data into LCP.
