Pre-operative echocardiogram in hip fracture patients with cardiac murmur--an audit

All hip fracture patients with a cardiac murmur have an echocardiogram as a part of their preoperative work-up in our unit. We performed a retrospective audit to assess the impact of obtaining a pre-operative echocardiogram on the management of hip fracture patients. All hip fracture patients (N = 349) between 01/06/08 and 01/06/09 were included in the study. 29 patients had pre-operative echocardiogram (echo group). A computer generated randomised sample of 40 patients was generated from N, 'non-echo' group. Data was obtained from medical records and the Hospital Information Support System (HISS). The groups were compared using Student's t test. Approval was obtained locally from the clinical governance department for this project. Age and gender distribution were similar in both groups. Indication for echo was an acute cardiac abnormality in 4 cases. 25 patients had echo for no new cardiac problem (indication being cardiac murmur in 23 patients and extensive cardiac history in 2 cases). Cardiology opinion was sought in 5 cases. No patient required cardiac surgery or balloon angioplasty preoperatively. Patients having pre-operative echo had significant delay to surgery (average 2.7 days, range 0-6 days) compared to 'non-echo' group (average 1.1 days, range 0-3 days), (p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in length of stay (p = 0.14) and mortality at 30 days (p = 0.41) between the groups. We have developed departmental guidelines for expediting echo requests in hip fracture patients with cardiac murmur. A liaison has been established with our cardiology department to prioritise such patients on the Echocardiography waiting list, to prevent unnecessary avoidable delay. Careful patient selection for pre-operative echocardiography is important to avoid unnecessary delay to surgery.