Outpatient surgical fixation of complicated calcaneal fractures pose no excess risk for 30-day complications.

The purpose of this study was to identify if complicated open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) of calcaneal fractures (i.e. requiring bone graft) performed in the outpatient setting poses an excess risk for 30-day complications compared to inpatient procedures. We included patients who underwent ORIF of the calcaneus involving the use of bone graft utilizing CPT code 28420 from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database (ACS-NSQIP) between 2014 and 2019. Postoperative complications, demographic data, patient characteristics, and operative factors were compared between groups. T-tests were performed to assess univariate associations between outpatient status and surgical/patient demographics for continuous variables while chi-squared tests were performed to evaluate categorical variables. A total of 113 patients were included, experiencing a 2.6% short term complication rate (3/113). All 3 complications occurred in the outpatient setting. 51.3% of surgeries were performed on an inpatient basis. In the univariate analysis, there were no statistically significant differences between inpatient and outpatient 30-day postoperative complication rates. Although more complications were recognized in the outpatient population, this did not reach statistical significance and suggests that complicated calcaneal ORIF procedures involving bone graft may be performed in the outpatient setting without posing an excess risk.