Traumatic Hip Joint and Thigh Injuries - an Analysis of NHF Reporting Data from 2016-2019 Using the NHF Statistics API.

Abstract

The hip joint is one of the most important joints in the human body. Although its multiaxial movements account for many benefits, they also render the hip one of the most hard-working joints. Injuries to the hip joint and thigh often occur as a result of a fall. According to epidemiologic data, such falls are most frequent in the elderly, particularly in osteoporosis sufferers. The "Services" component of the Statistics API version 1.0 provided by the National Health Fund (NHF) was used in order to evaluate the number of hospitalizations due to hip joint and thigh injuries. Information on the number of patients was obtained in a number of stages. The first stage involved determination of hip and thigh injuries as the main diagnosis. Then, the billing products which made possible settlement for hospitalization of patients with the selected diagnoses were chosen. The last stage consisted in the extraction of relevant medical data sets from the "Services" component of the NHF Sta-tistics API, which made possible this analysis. According to the NHF reporting data, over the four-year period of interest there were approx. 42,000 hospitalizations per year. The most frequent causes of hospitalization were fractures of the neck of the femur (S72.0) and trochanteric fractures (S72.1), accounting for approx. 48% and 36% of all hospital stays, respectively. 1. Hip injuries constitute a significant health problem in Poland (approx. 42,000 hospitalizations per year). 2. The most frequent causes of hospitalization are injuries in the form of fractures of the neck of the femur or trochanteric fractures (corresponding to the ICD-10 codes S72.0 and S72.1, respectively). 3. It appears advisable to develop a tool to enable medical service providers to adjust their services to patients' changing needs. This tool could em-ploy open-access data on injuries published in the NHF Statistics API.