Mortality rate after nonelective hospital admission

Abstract

Objective: We hypothesized that the mortality rate after nonelective hospital admission is higher during weekends than weekdays. Design: Retrospective cohort analysis. Setting: Patients admitted to hospitals in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a 20% sample of US community hospitals. Patients: We identified all patients with a nonelective hospital admission from January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2007, in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample. Next, we abstracted vital status at discharge and calculated the Charlson comorbidity index score for all patients. We then compared odds of inpatient mortality after nonelective hospital admission during the weekend compared with weekdays, after adjusting for diagnosis, age, sex, race, income level, payer, comorbidity, and hospital characteristics. Main Outcome Measure: Mortality rate. Results: Discharge data were available for 29 991 621 patients with nonelective hospital admissions during the 5-year study period: 6 842 030 during weekends and 23 149 591 during weekdays. Inpatient mortality was reported in 185 856 patients (2.7%) admitted for nonelective indications during weekends and 540 639 (2.3%) during weekdays (P