Mortality Risks Associated With Emergency Admissions During Weekends and Public Holidays: An Analysis of Electronic Health Records
Walker AS., Mason A., Quan TP., Fawcett NJ., Watkinson P., Llewelyn M., Stoesser N., Finney J., Davies J., Wyllie DH., Crook DW., Peto TEA.
(Abstracted from Lancet 2017;390:62–72) The “weekend effect” refers to the phenomenon by which patients admitted to a hospital during the weekend have greater mortality than those admitted on weekdays. It is unknown what causes the weekend effect, nor is it clear how the excess risk is distributed across the 48 hours of weekend admissions.