Increased mortality associated with weekend hospital admission: a case for expanded seven day services?

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford. ABSTRACT Not only is there an increased

likelihood of death when patients were admitted on Saturday or Sunday but also when admitted on Friday and Monday. MAIN Freemantle N, Ray D _et al_. _BMJ_ 2015; 351: h4596 There is an

increased likelihood of death within 30 days of admission, when patients were admitted at the weekend. In addition there was a 'weekend effect' (when patients were admitted on

Friday and Monday). The investigators used 'survivorship models' and adjusted for explanatory variables for death by applying for example, the Charlson Comorbidity Index. When

patients were already in hospital there was no increased risk of death at weekends. Using improvements in modelling, the results from this study support those published by the same group (_J

R Soc Med_ 2012; 105: 74–84) that calculated the much vaunted figure that mortality rates are 16% higher for patients admitted on a Sunday compared with when admitted on a Wednesday (HR =

1.16). But then only 1.8% of patients die within 30 days of admission. These figures have been drilled into by the BBC Radio 4 programme _More or less_. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and

permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Increased mortality associated with weekend hospital admission: a case for expanded seven day services?. _Br Dent J_ 219, 329 (2015).

https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2015.750 Download citation * Published: 09 October 2015 * Issue Date: 09 October 2015 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2015.750 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone

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