No association of COVID-19 with meeting time-to-surgery benchmarks for orthopedic trauma patients

Editor's Note

This study, led by researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire, finds that despite the challenges associated with COVID-19, many US hospital systems were able to implement strategies in keeping with time-to-surgery standards for orthopedic trauma patients.

Of 3,589 patients from 20 sites in the US and Canada who sustained open fractures or closed femur or hip fractures, 54 (3.1%) patients in the open fracture cohort and 407 (21.8%) patients in the closed femur/hip fracture cohort did not meet 24-hour time-to-surgery benchmarks.

The researchers were unable to detect any association between time to the OR and COVID-19 in either cohorts.

The findings are counter to concerns that the challenges associated with COVID-19 would be associated with clinically significant delays in management of urgent surgical cases, the researchers say.