Weekend admission and mortality for gastrointestinal disorders across England and Wales

Do Weekend Discharges Impact Readmission Rate in Patients Undergoing Pancreatic Surgery?

BACKGROUND

Weekend readmissions have been previously associated with increased mortality after pancreatic resection, but the effect of weekend discharge is less understood. In this study, we aim to determine the impact of weekend discharges on 30-day readmission rate after pancreatic surgery.

METHODS

All patients who underwent pancreatic surgery at a single, high-volume institution between 2013 and 2021 were retrospectively reviewed from a targeted, institutional ACS-NSQIP database. Patients who died prior to discharge were excluded. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between readmission and weekend discharge.

RESULTS

Out of 2042 patients who underwent pancreatectomy, 418 patients (20.5%) were discharged on the weekend. Weekend discharge was associated with fewer Whipple surgeries, fewer open surgical approaches, and shorter operative time. Patients discharged on the weekend were also less likely to have had postoperative complications such as delayed gastric emptying (DGE) (6.7% vs 12.6%, p < 0.01) and were more frequently discharged to home (91.1% vs. 85.3%, p < 0.01). Thirty-day readmission rate was almost identical between groups (14.8% vs 14.8%, p = 0.997). On multivariable analysis, 30-day readmission was independently associated with DGE (OR (95% CI): 3.48 (2.31-5.23), p < 0.01), postoperative pancreatic fistula (3.36 (2.34-4.83), p < 0.01), myocardial infarction, and perioperative blood transfusion, but not weekend discharge (1.02 (0.72-1.43), p = 0.93). Readmission rate also did not differ significantly when including Friday discharges in the weekend group (15.2% vs 14.6%, p = 0.72).

CONCLUSIONS

With careful clinical decision making, patients may safely be discharged on the weekend after pancreatic surgery without increasing 30-day readmission rate.

Increased risk of type 3c diabetes mellitus after acute pancreatitis warrants a personalized approach including diabetes screening

BACKGROUND

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a frequent cause of hospitalization with long-term health consequences, including type 3c diabetes mellitus (DM). The incidence and risk factors for new-onset morbidities after AP need to be clarified to inform a personalized medicine approach.

METHODS

Using a longitudinal electronic healthcare record-linkage analysis, all patients admitted to hospital in Scotland with a first episode of AP between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2012 and followed for a minimum of 5 years after their index AP admission were identified. All new-onset morbidity with specific focus on type 3c DM were analysed and, using time-split multiple regression.

RESULTS

A total of 2047 patients were included. AP requiring critical care was followed by 2 years of heightened risk (HR 5.24) of developing type 3c DM, increased risk of new-onset cardiac disease (HR 1.61), and renal disease (HR 2.96). The additional risk conferred by critical care AP had a negative interaction with time, whereas additional risk associated with male sex and a non-gallstone aetiology was long lasting.

CONCLUSION

Based on these findings, a personalized approach to include type 3c DM screening for a minimum of 2 years for individuals who required critical care when hospitalized with AP is recommended.

Hospitalized with stroke at the weekend: Higher cost and risk of early death?

OBJECTIVES

Previous studies have shown that weekend hospitalizations are associated with poorer health outcomes and higher mortality ("weekend effect"). However, few of these studies have adjusted for disease severity and little is known about the effect on costs. This work investigates the weekend effect and its costs for patients with cerebral infarction in Germany, adjusting for patient characteristics and proxies of stroke severity.

METHODS

Adult patients with a cerebral infarction hospitalization 10th revision of the International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (ICD-10: I63) between 01 January 2014 and 30 June 2017 were included from German health claims (AOK PLUS dataset). Propensity score matching was used to match patients hospitalized on weekends or on public holidays (weekend group) with patients hospitalized during the working week (workday group), based on baseline characteristics and proxies for disease severity such as concomitant diagnoses of aphasia, ataxia, and coma, or peg tube at index hospitalization. Matched cohorts were compared in terms of in-hospital, 7-day, and 30-day mortality, as well as risk and costs of stroke and rehabilitation stays in the year after first stroke.

RESULTS

Of 32,311 patients hospitalized with cerebral infarction between 01 January 2014 and 30 June 2017, 8409 were in the weekend group and 23,902 in the workday group. After propensity score matching, 16,730 patients were included in our study (8365 per group). Matched cohorts did not differ in baseline characteristics or stroke severity. In the weekend group, the risk of in-hospital death (11.2%) and the seven-day mortality rate (6.8%) were 13.1% and 17.2% higher than in the workday group, respectively (both p < 0.01). The hazard ratio for death in the weekend group was 1.1 (p = 0.043). The risks of subsequent stroke hospitalization and rehabilitation stays for a stroke were 8.4% higher and 5.5% higher in the weekend group (both p = 0.02). As a result, the stroke-related hospitalization and rehabilitation costs per patient year were, respectively, 5.6% and 8.0% higher in the weekend group (both p = 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

A significant weekend effect emerged after controlling for observable patient characteristics and proxies of stroke severity. This effect also resulted in higher costs for patients admitted on weekends.

Analysis of weekend effect in severe acute liver injury: A nationwide database study

Background and Aims

Severe acute liver injury (ALI) can lead to poor outcomes without timely management. Comparatively worse outcomes in various severe, emergent conditions have been attributed to reduced hospital resources experienced by patient weekend admissions, a phenomenon termed "weekend effect." To date, a weekend effect has not been studied in severe ALI, an emergency also necessitating timely management. We aimed to evaluate such an effect in this condition by analyzing a large national inpatient database in the United States.

Methods

We analyzed the Nationwide/National Inpatient Sample (NIS) 2000 to 2014, the largest inpatient, all-payer database in the United States (US), containing sociodemographic, clinical, patient-, and hospital-level data. We identified severe ALI using International Classification of Disease, 9^th Revision diagnosis codes for acute/subacute hepatic necrosis (570) with encephalopathy (572.2). Our primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Using a full-model approach for covariate selection, we performed multiple logistic regression modeling to assess for weekend effect and identify predictors of in-hospital mortality.

Results

We identified 15 762 eligible hospitalizations, with 12 182 (77.3%) having complete covariate data. This sample comprised 53.3% males, 69.3% White race, and had an average (± SD) age of 55.0 ± 14.1 years. We utilized a full-model approach for covariate inclusion but did not include patient transfer data due to limited availability. We observed no significant mortality differences in weekend admissions (OR = 1.06, 95% CI: 0.97-1.15, P = 0.02). However, significantly higher mortality was associated with male sex, older age, Black or Hispanic race, Northeast US hospitalization, urban teaching status, and larger hospital size. Sensitivity analyses using multiple imputation datasets and transfer covariates did not change our results.

Conclusion

We did not observe a weekend effect of in-hospital mortality for weekend admissions for severe ALI, but our overall diagnosis ascertainment yield was low-indicating that lack of accurate documentation for the etiology of severe ALI may be masking an effect. Additionally, our findings suggest that racial differences and hospital-level characteristics in the context of severe ALI may be associated with varying outcomes, regardless of admission day, which warrants further research.

Weekend admissions and mortality for major acute disorders across England and Wales: record linkage cohort studies

Background

To establish which major disorders are susceptible to increased mortality following acute admissions on weekends, compared with week days, and how this may be explained.

Methods

Cohorts based on national administrative inpatient and mortality data for 14,168,443 hospitalised patients in England and 913,068 in Wales who were admitted for 66 disorders that were associated with at least 200 deaths within 30 days of acute admission. The main outcome measure was the weekend mortality effect (defined as the conventional mortality odds ratio for admissions on weekends compared with week days).

Results

There were large, statistically significant weekend mortality effects (> 20%) in England for 22 of the 66 conditions and in both countries for 14. These 14 were 4 of 13 cancers (oesophageal, colorectal, lung and lymphomas); 4 of 13 circulatory disorders (angina, abdominal aortic aneurysm, peripheral vascular disease and arterial embolism & thrombosis); one of 8 respiratory disorders (pleural effusion); 2 of 12 gastrointestinal disorders (alcoholic and other liver disease); 2 of 3 ageing-related disorders (Alzheimer’s disease and dementia); none of 7 trauma conditions; and one of 10 other disorders (acute renal failure). Across the disorders, 64% of the variation in weekend mortality effects in England and Wales was explained by reductions in admission rates at weekends and the medical disease category.

Conclusions

The effect of weekend admission on 30 day mortality is seen mainly for cancers, some circulatory disorders, liver disease and a few other conditions which are mainly ageing- or cancer-related. Most of the increased mortality is associated with reduced admission rates at weekends and the medical disease category.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-019-4286-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Examining the weekend effect across ICU performance metrics

BACKGROUND

Known colloquially as the "weekend effect," the association between weekend admissions and increased mortality within hospital settings has become a highly contested topic over the last two decades. Drawing interest from practitioners and researchers alike, a sundry of works have emerged arguing for and against the presence of the effect across various patient cohorts. However, it has become evident that simply studying population characteristics is insufficient for understanding how the effect manifests. Rather, to truly understand the effect, investigations into its underlying factors must be considered. As such, the work presented in this manuscript serves to address this consideration by moving beyond identification of patient cohorts to examining the role of ICU performance.

METHODS

Employing a comprehensive, publicly available database of electronic medical records (EMR), we began by utilizing multiple logistic regression to identify and isolate a specific cohort in which the weekend effect was present. Next, we leveraged the highly detailed nature of the EMR to evaluate ICU performance using well-established ICU quality scorecards to assess differences in clinical factors among patients admitted to an ICU on the weekend versus weekday.

RESULTS

Our results demonstrate the weekend effect to be most prevalent among emergency surgery patients (OR 1.53; 95% CI 1.19, 1.96), specifically those diagnosed with circulatory diseases (P<.001). Differences between weekday and weekend admissions for this cohort included a variety of clinical factors such as ventilatory support and night-time discharges.

CONCLUSIONS

This work reinforces the importance of accounting for differences in clinical factors as well as patient cohorts in studies investigating the weekend effect.