Patients
admitted to Hospitals on a weekend wait for
Major Procedures
Newswise — Of the 8
million patients who were admitted to U.S.
hospitals on weekends in 2007, approximately
one-third received needed major procedures
on the day of admission, according to the
latest News and Numbers from the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality. In
comparison, patients who were admitted on
weekdays received 65 percent of all major
procedures on their first day in the
hospital.
For example, patients who
were admitted on weekends were nearly three
times more likely to be there due to
emergencies, such as heart attack, stomach
bleeding, fractures or internal injuries
than patients hospitalized on a weekday (28
percent versus 11 percent ). In addition, 65
percent of patients admitted on a weekend
were initially seen in hospital emergency
departments, compared with 44 percent of
weekday-admitted patients.
The federal agency’s
analysis also found that:
• Nearly 7 of every 10
patients hospitalized on a weekend were
admitted through the emergency department,
compared with roughly 4 in 10 patients
admitted during a weekday.
• Sixty-four percent of
heart attack patients admitted on a weekend
had a major cardiac procedure, such as
angioplasty or heart bypass surgery,
performed by the second day of their
hospitalization, compared with 76 percent of
heart attack patients admitted on a weekday.
A smaller share of weekend than weekday
admissions received treatment on the day of
admission for back surgery (35 percent
versus 90 percent); angina (37 percent
versus 23 percent); gallbladder removal (23
percent versus 32 percent); and hernia
repair (54 percent versus 68 percent).
• Weekday admissions were
often planned in advance. For example, 99
percent of admissions for osteoarthritis and
93 percent of those for back problems
occurred on weekdays.
• About 2.4 percent of
patients admitted on a weekend died in the
hospital, compared with 1.8 percent of
patients admitted on a weekday.
This AHRQ News and Numbers
is based on data in Characteristics of
Weekday and Weekend Hospital Admission
(http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb87.pdf).
The report uses statistics from the 2007
Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a database of
hospital inpatient stays that is nationally
representative of inpatient stays in all
short-term, non- federal hospitals. The data
are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90
percent of all discharges in the United
States and include all patients, regardless
of insurance type, as well as the uninsured.
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