Is cardiac test availability a significant factor in weekend delays in discharge for chest pain patients?
- 1 October 1993
- journal article
- other
- Published by Springer Nature in Journal of General Internal Medicine
- Vol. 8 (10) , 573-575
- https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02599642
Abstract
The authors assessed whether the lack of weekend cardiac test availability significantly contributed to weekend delays in hospital discharge for “low-risk” chest pain patients. Mean lengths of stay were compared for late-week versus early-week admissions. Patients with late-week admissions had a 19% greater length of stay than did patients admitted earlier in the week (2.36±1.87 vs 1.91±1.21 days, p=0.10, with p=0.015 after adjusting for severity of illness). Cardiac diagnostic tests were ordered for only4% of study patients. Therefore, the “weekend effect” existed in an environment where cardiac diagnostic tests were infrequently ordered.Keywords
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