AB108. SOH23ABS_036. Open to change: can district general hospitals deal with open fractures too?
Orthopaedic Session II

AB108. SOH23ABS_036. Open to change: can district general hospitals deal with open fractures too?

David Solomon, Jagdeesh Nijjher

Trauma and Orthopaedic Department, Craigavon Area Hospital, Craigavon, Northern Ireland, UK

Background: Fractures compromising soft tissues puts patients at risk of significant morbidity, therefore require timely multidisciplinary management. The British Orthopaedic Association Standard for Trauma (BOAST) Guidelines, updated December 2017, state “Patients with open fractures of long bones, hind foot or midfoot should be taken directly or transferred to a specialist centre that can provide orthoplastic care”. Northern Ireland’s population is estimated at 1.8 million, within this there are between 370 and 500 cases of major trauma each year.

Methods: This review looks at patients presenting to Craigavon Area Hospital in Northern Ireland, between October 2021 to October 2022, with open fractures.

Results: Over the study period, 41 Open fractures presented, 12 meeting criteria for transfer to a major trauma centre with orthoplastic’s present as per BOAST Guidelines point 1. However, 11 patients were managed in Craigavon Area Hospital and 1 patient required transfer to a site with plastics available.

Conclusions: Can we learn from this same subgroup of patients? There is an ever-growing demand to major trauma centres in Northern Ireland some of the burden on which can be dealt with by district general hospitals (DGH)’s. This data should help contribute to any future updates of BOAST’s guidelines.

Keywords: British Orthopaedic Association Standard for Trauma (BOAST); fracture; guidelines; open; Northern Ireland

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

doi: 10.21037/map-23-ab108
Cite this abstract as: Solomon D, Nijjher J. AB108. SOH23ABS_036. Open to change: can district general hospitals deal with open fractures too? Mesentery Peritoneum 2023;7:AB108.

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