Editor's Choice Academic Journal Main Category: Stroke Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience Article Date: 10 Jul 2012 - 10:00 PDT
Current ratings for: Weekend Stroke Patients Fare Worse Than Weekday Ones
There is even a term for the apparent difference in a patient's chances of receiving full care during weekends; it is called the weekend effect.
Lead author, William L. Palmer, MA, MSc, and team wrote that the weekend effect challenges the statement made by many regarding the equality of care patients receive when being hospitalized, irrespective of when this occurs.
Palmer and team set out to find out whether a stroke patient's access to the hospital's best and safest stroke care varies depending on whether he/she was admitted on a weekday or weekend.
They carried out a retrospective cohort study of 93,621 patients, in England, who had been hospitalized with stroke from 1st April, 2009 to the end of March, 2010. The team gathered data on which day patients were hospitalized and compared six indicators of stroke care, including hospital discharge, 30-day readmission rates, availability of brain scans, availability of clot treatments (thrombolysis), seven-day mortality, and complications.
Of these 93,621 stroke patients, irrespective of day of admittance to hospital:
The researchers suggest that across England, 350 avoidable in-hospital deaths due to stroke are occurring each year, and 650 more people could be discharged to their homes within 56 days if weekday performances were replicated on weekends.
Every 40 seconds somebody in the USA has a stroke, and every four minutes somebody dies of stroke.
87% of all strokes in the USA are ischemic strokes - when blood clots block the blood vessels to the brain.
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Weekend Stroke Patients Fare Worse Than Weekday Ones