Alberta Health Services is standardizing the way it takes care of patients who have suffered a hip fracture in an effort to get them back on their feet sooner.

The province announced the establishment of a provincial Hip Fracture Care Pathway on Monday to help guide patients through the recovery process.

The pathway, takes the patient from the emergency department to surgery and then through to rehabilitation.

The system was developed by the Bone and Joint Health Strategic Clinical Network of Alberta Health Services (AHS).

"Patients throughout Alberta will receive surgery within a standard wait time after they fracture their hip and be mobilized one day after their operation,” said Dr. Kevin Hildebrand, co-chair of the Fractured Hip Care Pathway. “Patients who get their procedure sooner and who are up and moving soon after surgery have better results and quicker recovery. And having one pathway ensures consistent, quality care to all patients, whether they live in a big urban centre or a small rural community, which is one of the benefits of having an integrated provincial health system.”

The pathway was introduced last December in twelve orthopedic trauma hospitals across the province as a standard road map for care.

“Trying to improve care for the patients so that the quality of the care as well as the safety is maintained and we’re also trying to improve our utilization of the resources we have already, so we’re trying to optimize our resources and hopefully build capacity,” said Dr. Hildebrand.

Wauna Boyer, 87, broke her hip last September and says the program is a great idea.

“I think it’s wonderful. I really do and I hope more older people will read about this and see about it because I think it’s very important,” said Boyer.

The goals are for patients to receive surgery within 48 hours of sustaining the hip fracture 80 percent of the time and to have patients up and moving, with assistance, one day after surgery 95 percent of the time.

“It’s taken us three years to get to this stage and a lot of the information we are gathering right now will be the first time we’ve had that information to share with everybody and then we’ll have to go back to the groups to see what challenges may be at each of the different sites to try and reach these goals,” said Dr. Hildebrand.

An audit is expected in the fall on all the data that is collected to show how the hospitals are progressing towards the targets.