Capital Hip Care Centre

In 1998 the Medical Devices Agency (now known as the MHRA) released a Hazard Notice advising clinicians to stop using the 3M boxCapital Hip and to review all patients who had been implanted with a 3M hip.

We joined the Capital Hip Care Centre once the programme had been implemented and data was being captured regarding the identification of the implants and the patients that had been reviewed.

The data was captured on several spreadsheets detailing each review appointment that the patient attended; each spreadsheet also detailed the outcome that the surgeon had indicated regarding the hip following each consultation.

 

  • We regularly imported the spreadsheet data into an Access database to enable easier reporting and history trends to be built up for each patient.
  • Data quality and validation queries were implemented to highlight any issues with the data either received or input.
    • e.g. invalid dates – the known time period that the hips were implanted was known, therefore analysis was performed to highlight any implantation dates that were not within this period.  These exceptions were then followed up to ensure the patient had received a 3M hip, thereby potentially saving 3M paying for none relevant cases.
    • Patient forenames and surnames were often transposed; this resulted in duplicate records being created.
    • Duplicate checks were performed using forename, surname and DOB combinations.
    • The implant side (left or right) was entered incorrectly and duplicate checks highlighted these, this analysis indicated a need to have a bilateral flag in the system to accurately capture patients where both hips had been replaced.
  • Tracking mechanisms were implemented to compare number of prostheses identified by each hospital against the number 3M had provided.
  • A Gap Analysis report was regularly created to show how many prostheses still needed to be accounted for.
  • Analysis was performed on the results received to provide an early indication of the length of the implant life before revision surgery was required.
  • Reports were provided to the Royal College of Surgeons to supplement the information they captured during hospital case audits.
Presentations were created for meetings with the Department of Health (DOH).