Improving measures of hip fracture wait times: a focus on ontario

In 2009-2010, a "time of surgery" data element was added to CIHI's Discharge Abstract Database enabling a more precise calculation of patient wait times for hip fracture repair, measured in hours rather than days. Using an Ontario sample, we explored this more precise calculation for the first three quarters of 2009-2010 (April to December), and the impact of adding wait times in the emergency department (ED) to the total wait. When we linked emergency department and in-patient care wait times, the percent of patients meeting the benchmark of 48 hours dropped from 78% (when the start time was admission to an acute care bed) to 71%.