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At many hospitals, generalist physicians increasingly are joined by orthopedists in managing patients with hip fractures. In this study using the Veterans Affairs hospital database, researchers searched for factors that influenced short-term outcomes among 5683 men (mean age, 77) who were hospitalized for surgical repair of hip fracture.
Thirty-day mortality was 8%, and 21% of patients had complications such as pneumonia or urinary tract infections. In an analysis adjusted for many confounding variables, two modifiable perioperative factors predicted higher 30-day mortality — a delay of 4 or more days in performing surgery (odds ratio, 1.29) and use of general (vs. spinal or epidural) anesthesia (OR, 1.27). General anesthesia also was associ…