Patients admitted to hospitals during weekends are associated with higher mortality rate than those admitted on weekdays, according to a study from Tohoku University, Japan.
For the study, researchers analysed hospital data from worldwide that included 72 studies and 55,053,719 participants. The researchers found that the mortality rate of patients who were admitted on weekends was between 15 percent and 17 percent.
"There are at least two potential explanations for our results. First, these differences reflect poorer quality of care in hospital at the weekend, and second, patients admitted on at weekend could be more severely ill than those admitted on at weekday. We believe that poorer care at the weekends is the much more likely explanation," said researcher Dr Hiroshi Hoshijima, in a press release.
In another parallel study, German researchers - Claudia Spies and Felix Kork - surveyed data of more than 200,000 patients who underwent surgery between 2006 and 2011 at the University Hospital campuses of Charite Tertiary Care University Center in Berlin.
The researchers found that patients admitted during afternoons were 21 percent more likely to die than those admitted in the morning or evening. And those admitted in February were 16 percent more likely to die than those admitted during other months.
"We need more data to draw conclusions regarding seasonal variation in postoperative outcome. Despite having an accredited quality management system in place in our hospitals, as well as having the European Society of Anaesthesiology's Helsinki Declaration of Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology implemented, this study shows that we should seek to further improve patient safety," the researchers said, Health reports.
