Study: Admission day dictates heart failure, length of stay

A new study suggests that heart failure patients admitted to the hospital on Thursdays and Fridays have longer stays in the hospital than those admitted on other days of the week, while those admitted on Tuesday have the shortest stays. Generally speaking, there were far fewer discharges over the weekends, particularly on Sundays, noted Dr. Gregg Fonarow, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine. Interestingly, there was no relationship between the day admitted and death rates, though heart attack patients admitted on weekends were more likely to die than those admitted on weekdays.

To conduct the study, Fonarow and his colleagues looked at data from a sample of 48,612 heart failure patients admitted to 259 hospitals across the U.S. They found that hospital lengths of stay differed from 5.39 days for those admitted on Tuesdays to 5.88 days for those admitted on Fridays.

To learn more about the study:
- read this HealthDay News item

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