Getting hip to vitamin D: a hospitalist project for improving the assessment and treatment of vitamin D deficiency in elderly patients with hip fracture.

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is common in elderly patients with hip fracture, and clinical practice guidelines recommend screening this population. Our hospitalist group cares for all patients admitted with hip fracture, yet lacked a standardized approach to screening for and treating vitamin D deficiency in this population.

Objectives: To standardize and improve the assessment and treatment of vitamin D deficiency in elderly patients with hip fracture.

Design: Quality improvement implementation.

Setting: Tertiary academic hospital.

Patients: Adults age >50 years with hip fracture.

Interventions: We implemented a computerized hip fracture order set with preselected orders for 25-OH vitamin D level and initial supplementation with 1000 IU/day of vitamin D. We presented a review of the literature and performance data to our hospitalist group.

Measurements: Percentage of patients with acute hip fracture screened for vitamin D deficiency and percentage of deficient or insufficient patients discharged on recommended dose of vitamin D (50,000 IU/wk if level <20 ng/mL).

Results: The percentage of patients screened for vitamin D deficiency improved from 37.2% (n = 196) before implementation to 93.5% (n = 107) after (P < 0.001). The percentage of deficient or insufficient patients discharged on the recommended vitamin D dose improved from 40.9% to 68.0% (P = 0.008). The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency (25-OH vitamin D level <30 ng/mL) was 50.0%.

Conclusions: Simple interventions, consisting of a change in computerized order set and presentation of evidence and data from group practice, led to significant improvement in the assessment and treatment of vitamin D deficiency in elderly patients with hip fracture.