Weekend advice: stay out of the hospital

One weekend, you are more likely to check in and never check out. That’s right, people admitted into the hospital on a weekend are 10% more likely to die than those people checking in on the weekdays.

According to study author Dr. Rocco Ricciardi of Tufts University Medical School, that totals up to tens of thousands of people each year. “In other words, an extra 20 to 25 thousand people die each year in the United States because of admission on a weekend,” he claimed. Previous research has shown the so-called “weekend effect” for conditions like heart attack, a blood clot in a lung, a ruptured abdominal artery and strokes of all kinds. This study is based on an analysis of a national sample of 30 million people over a 5 year period all admitted for non-elective reasons. This represents the largest sampling of most types of admissions.

It’s not clear why this happens. Looking at trauma, there is no difference between weekday and weekend admissions so there should be no difference in the mortality rate, yet, there is it, 10% higher.

It could be that the staffing is lighter or fewer well trained doctors prefer to work the weekends. Maybe there is less access to equipment manned during business hours on weekdays.

Since the study eliminates differences in trauma rates and took into account whether weekend admissions had other illnesses making them more susceptible to succumb, speculation is that weekend care is below par.

Source: Archives of Surgery, Reuters