Standardized pathway for outpatient ambulatory fracture surgery

Editor's Note

In this study, an outpatient fracture pathway greatly improved the efficiency and timeliness of care, and it reduced costs.

A total of 187 patients during the preintervention period and 308 patients during the intervention period were eligible for the ambulatory pathway.

Those managed as outpatients increased from 1.6% (preintervention) to 89.1% (postintervention). Length of stay decreased from 2.8 to 0.2 days, a decrease of 94%.

Interventions included a policy change to allow booking of outpatient urgent-room cases, education for patients and nurses, and the development of a standardized outpatient pathway.