Weekday vs. Weekend: When to Have Surgery?
Patients undergoing surgery before weekends face increased chances of complications, hospital readmissions, and even death, according to a large-scale study.
Watan-A new study on patients requiring surgery suggests that the day on which the surgery is performed may influence the likelihood of achieving a better outcome.
Researchers found that compared to those who underwent surgery earlier in the week, patients who had surgery right before the weekend were more likely to experience negative outcomes, such as post-operative complications, hospital readmission, or even death.
The study was published in March in the medical journal JAMA, according to Health, a health news website.
Vatsala Mundra, co-author of the study and a clinical research fellow in urologic surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital in the U.S., said: “Previous studies have talked about the so-called ‘weekend effect’—that if surgery is performed close to the weekend, the outcomes are more likely to be worse.”
Why Weekends Can Be Risky in Hospitals
The “weekend effect” had been observed in short-term patient follow-ups, but Mundra said she and her colleagues wanted to see if the issue would persist over a longer observation period.
After analyzing data from around 430,000 patients over 13 years, researchers found a “significant increase in risk” of poor outcomes among those who had surgery on Fridays compared to those who underwent surgery on Mondays.
The researchers explained that such findings provide patients with a better understanding of how factors like hospital staffing can affect their health and encourage the medical community to improve and standardize the quality of surgical care.
The study involved patients who underwent one of several common surgical procedures. Researchers tracked their health for a year following surgery. More than half of the surgeries were performed on Mondays, while 46.5% took place on Fridays.
After analyzing all the data, researchers found that patients who had surgery on Fridays were 5% more likely to face adverse health consequences—including death, hospital readmission, and both short- and long-term complications—compared to those who had surgery on Mondays.
Despite the findings, Dr. Salva Balbal, assistant professor at Northwestern University, stated that “it’s very difficult to isolate the weekend effect itself from other factors” that may actually be responsible for poor surgical outcomes. https://youtube.com/She told Health that the surgeon’s skill, how the procedure was performed, and hospital characteristics or resources might also be contributing factors.
But why is the “weekend” problematic in hospitals?
The Weekend Effect in Hospitals
Dr. Anupam Jena, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, says the true cause of the weekend effect is hard to pinpoint. However, he explains that “on Fridays or weekends, medical staff may be more thinly spread.” He adds that the number of doctors and nurses on these shifts tends to be lower, and a surgeon might find themselves responsible not only for their own patients but also for those of other surgeons who aren’t working that day.
Mundra also noted that younger, less experienced surgeons were more likely to work Friday shifts before the weekend. She added that “access to specialists and diagnostic services may be limited over the weekend.”
Balbal confirmed that the weekend effect is not limited to surgical care, but spans across “various specialties” in medicine. “Health care quality and patient safety studies have long indicated that patients may face an increased risk of adverse outcomes when admitted to hospitals over weekends,” she said.
