Accreditation

Death more likely in weekend heart attack victims

Accreditation Connection, March 19, 2007

A study of heart attack victims in New Jersey showed that patients admitted to hospitals on the weekend died at a slightly higher rate than those admitted during the week, reports The New York Times.

The study performed by the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School looked at 231,164 heart attack patients in New Jersey from 1987 to 2002. From 1999 to 2002 12.9% of the patients admitted on weekends died, compared to 12% of weekday patients.

Less aggressive treatment on the weekends may have been to blame, according to the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Ten percent of weekday patients received an angioplasty, while only 6.7% of weekend patients received the same treatment.

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