If you are recovering from some malady in hospital and are feeling well enough to leave, it may seem appealing to go home in time for the weekend. But a recent study shows that being discharged on a Friday may be more harmful to your health than waiting a few days more.
Previous research has shown that discharge from critical care units during the night tends to result in higher mortality for those patients. Weekend admissions to the hospital carry the same hazard. Dr. Chaim M. Bell of the department of medicine at U of T and Dr. Carl van Walraven from the Ottawa Health Research Institute have asked whether the day of discharge from hospital bears any relationship to patient outcomes. They found that patients sent home on Friday are most likely to suffer ill effects within the following month.
The study looked at 10 years of data collected on all discharges from Ontario hospitals. Bell and van Walraven found that Friday was the most common discharge day. This was not surprising, given that staffing levels in hospitals tend to decrease on weekends. But patients discharged on a Friday had a four per cent greater chance of non-elective re-admission or death within the following 30 days, relative to midweek discharges.
Their report, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, speculates that patients rushed out of hospital on Friday might be less medically stable or less well-prepared to leave hospital. Also, many health and social support services don’t start until the following Monday, which could play a big role in the study’s results.
Bell said this is “most likely a three-tiered problem, one of the system [physicians], patients, and community care services.”
While researchers are still trying to identify the causes, Bell and van Walraven caution physicians to keep this observation in mind before they opt to get their patients home for the weekend.
