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Over the past few decades, sensors have been gaining a lot of popularity in the medical field. These sensors have helped shift the paradigm in medicine from having things done manually to digitalizing them. In the medical field, sensors have been manufactured in different forms and shapes including wearable and implantable wireless devices. With the aid of these sensors, healthcare professionals hope to revolutionize the system in a cost-effective way. In fact, this is already evident in most healthcare systems with the use of sensors for blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and arrhythmias on a daily basis. Also, more sophisticated sensors have made way into the medical field with a feedback loop, such as insulin pumps. On the other hand, similar technologies have been introduced in the orthopaedics world in the past decade. In this paper we summarize some of the sensors used in the medical field in general, and in orthopaedics in particular.

Objective Our aim was to determine the effect of hypoalbuminaemia as a marker of malnutrition on the 30-day postoperative complication rate and mortality in patients receiving surgical treatment for hip fractures using the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) database. Methods We analyzed all patients admitted with hip fractures receiving surgical treatment from 2011 to 2013. Patients were dichotomized based on their albumin levels; hypoalbuminaemia (albumin 3.5 g/dL). Patient demographics, postoperative complications, and length of stay were analysed. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess the ability of albumin level for predicting postoperative complications, length of stay, and mortality. Results A total of 10,117 patients with hip fractures were identified with 5414 patients with normal albumin levels, and 4703 with low albumin. Multivariate analysis showed that when controlling for comorbidities; hypoalbuminaemia alone was a predictor of postoperative complications (death, unplanned intubation, being on a ventilator >48 h, sepsis, and blood transfusion), and increased length of stay (6.90 ± 7.23 versus 8.44 ± 8.70, CI 0.64–1.20, P Conclusion Hypoalbuminaemia alone can predict postoperative outcomes in patients with hip fractures. Furthermore, patients with hypoalbuminaemia had a longer hospital length of stay. Further studies are needed to assess whether nutritional support can improve postoperative complications in patients with hypoalbuminaemia.