Patients admitted on weekends have higher in-hospital mortality than those admitted on weekdays: analysis of national inpatient sample.
The ”weekend effect” refers to worse outcomes among patients admitted on the weekend versus weekday. Based on a sample of over 121 million adult hospital discharges from 2016 to 2019, researchers examined the association between several different variables and in-hospital death. Multivariable analyses identified several predictors of in-hospital death (e.g., older age, higher number of comorbidities, etc.) and the researchers found that patients admitted on weekends underwent fewer procedures and had higher mortality rates compared to patients admitted on weekdays. The authors suggest that improved staffing and availability of procedures may improve mortality.