The level of staffing in hospitals is often lower on weekends than on weekdays, despite a presumably consistent day-to-day burden of disease. It is uncertain whether in-hospital mortality rates among patients with serious conditions differ according to whether they are admitted on a weekend or on a weekday.
We analyzed all acute care admissions from emergency departments in Ontario, Canada, between 1988 and 1997 (a total of 3,789,917 admissions). We compared in-hospital mortality among patients admitted on a weekend with that among patients admitted on a weekday for three prespecified diseases: ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (5454 admissions), acute epiglottitis (1139), and pulmonary embolism (11,686) and for three control diseases: myocardial infarction (160,220), intracerebral hemorrhage (10,987), and acute hip fracture (59,670), as well as for the 100 conditions that were the most common causes of death (accounting for 1,820,885 admissions).
Weekend admissions were associated with significantly higher in-hospital mortality rates than were weekday admissions among patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms (42 percent vs. 36 percent, P
Notes
Comment In: N Engl J Med. 2002 May 9;346(19):1500-1; author reply 1500-112001964
Comment In: N Engl J Med. 2001 Aug 30;345(9):692-411547726
Comment In: N Engl J Med. 2002 May 9;346(19):1500-1; author reply 1500-112001963
Comment In: N Engl J Med. 2002 May 9;346(19):1500-1; author reply 1500-112000826