Development and Application of Critical Pathway for Orbital Wall Fracture Patients.

You, Sun Hye; Hwang, Jin Hee; Hwang, Kun

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons 2007;34(6):713-718.
Published online November 1, 2007.

Development and Application of Critical Pathway for Orbital Wall Fracture Patients.

Sun Hye You, Jin Hee Hwang, Kun Hwang

¹Department of Plastic Surgery, Inha University College of Medicine, Incheon, Korea. jokerhg@inha. ac.kr
²Center for Advanced Medical Education by BK21 Project, Inha University College of Medicine, Incheon, Korea.

Abstract

PURPOSE
The aim of this study is to develop and apply the critical pathway to the orbital wall fracture patients and to elucidate its effect. METHODS: Critical pathway(CP) sheet and questionnaire were developed by a team approach. Critical pathway was applied to 7 orbital wall fracture patients (CP group) from April 2006 to September 2006. Length of hospitalization and cost for hospitalization of CP group were compared to those of the 10 patients who had same disease entities and treated by conventional regimen(control group).
RESULTS
Length of hospitalization in the CP group (7.20 day) were insignificantly shorter than that of control group(8.71 day). Mean cost for hospitalization of the CP group(776,398 won) were insignificantly lower than that of control group(1,028,531 won). The patients satisfaction for the explanation regarding operation procedure, therapeutic operation fee, length of hospitalization and medical personnel were all affirmative.
CONCLUSION
Critical pathway that we developed for orbital wall fracture definitely improved the quality of treatment. Furthermore, other critical pathways should be developed for another facial trauma patients.

Keywords: Critical pathway; Orbital fracture