Variations in the use of cemented implants for hip fracture repair in Nova Scotia, Canada

BACKGROUND: Opinions differ on the use of a cemented versus uncemented implant for repair of femoral neck fractures. The purpose of this study was to compare variation in the use of cemented implants for patients with hip fracture in Nova Scotia, Canada. METHODS: The study population was all patients who underwent primary emergency hip fracture arthroplasty in Nova Scotia between 2010/11 and 2019/20. We calculated 3 aggregate measures of variation across all hospitals: the extremal quotient (EQ) (ratio of the highest to the lowest rate of variation), the weighted coefficient of variation (WCV) (standard deviation divided by mean) and the systematic component of variation (SCV) (the between-surgeon variation, excluding the random component). Bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed. RESULTS: Our study population included 3787 patients with hip fracture who underwent arthroplasty at 5 hospitals, of whom 2219 (58.6%, 95% CI 57.1%–60.2%) received cemented implants. The age- and sex-adjusted proportion of cemented cases ranged from 36.6% (95% CI 33.6%–40.0%) to 71.1% (95% CI 68.4%–73.8%). The highest EQ value was 30.3 (95% CI 0.0–80.0). The WCV ranged from 32.6 (95% CI 28.5–36.7) to 77.3 (95% CI 68.3–86.3). The SCV indicated very high between-surgeon variation at all hospitals. The WCV and SCV resulted in the same rankings for all hospitals, indicating consistency between the 2 measures. CONCLUSION: We found considerable variation across surgeons in the use of cemented implants for patients with hip fracture in Nova Scotia. Guidelines could help build consensus on this practice among surgeons.