Periop infrastructure can overcome weekend effect

Editor's Note

Specific hospital resources can overcome the weekend effect seen in urgent general surgery procedures, this study finds.

Resources that were predictors for overcoming the weekend effect included: full adoption of electronic medical records, home health program, pain management program, increased RN-to-bed ratio, and inpatient physical rehabilitation.

The study included nearly 127,000 patients at 166 hospitals.

Objective: We hypothesized that perioperative hospital resources could overcome the "weekend effect" (WE) in patients undergoing emergent/urgent surgeries. Summary Background Data: The WE is the observation that surgeon-independent patient outcomes are worse on the weekend compared with weekdays. The WE is often explained by differences in staffing and resources resulting in variation in care between the week and weekend.