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Study: More Hospital Deaths on Weekends

Posted on: Thursday, 15 March 2007, 12:00 CDT

A study of heart attack patients at New Jersey hospitals found those seeking treatment on weekends were more likely to die than those admitted on weekdays.

The study of 231,164 heart attack patients in New Jersey hospitals from 1987 to 2002 found the death rate for weekend patients was 12.9 percent, almost a full point higher than the 12 percent death rate for weekday patients, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The research team, led by fourth-year medical student William Kostis at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., found that 10 percent of weekday patients admitted from 1999 to 2002 were given angioplasty procedures to open blocked arteries on the day of admission, compared to 6.7 percent for weekend patients in that same time period.

Dr. Donald Redelmeier, a University of Toronto professor of medicine who wrote an accompanying editorial, said the weekend death rate has everything to do with staffing in hospitals.

It's not just that there are fewer people around, but those who are around are often spread thinner, he said. And there is a shift in seniority, as well. The most skilled and savvy people don't work weekends.

Source: United Press International

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