Increases in heart failure visits after christmas and new year's day

Abstract

The authors hypothesized increased emergency department (ED) visits for heart failure (HF) during a 2-week Christmas holiday period similar to a recent study showing increased cardiac death rates. A retrospective analysis was performed from a database of 18 EDs in New Jersey and New York from January 1, 1996, to November 30, 2004, analyzing HF visits from December 1 to January 31. The authors compared the mean daily visits for the 2-week holiday period of December 25 to January 7, as well as December 26 to December 30 and January 2 to January 5, using the Student t test. A total of 4.7 million patients were studied, 65,646 with an ED diagnosis of HF and 11,525 during January and December. There was a 23% (95% confidence interval [CI], 14%-31%; P