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Risk of dying is higher in patients admitted to intensive care at weekends, finds Austrian study

BMJ 2017; 358 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j4185 (Published 07 September 2017) Cite this as: BMJ 2017;358:j4185
  1. Susan Mayor
  1. London

Patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) at weekends are at higher risk of death than those admitted on a weekday, even after adjusting for severity of illness, an Austrian registry study has found.1 But patients already on ICUs had lower mortality at weekends than weekdays.

“This effect requires thoughtful considerations both by clinicians and policy makers, because in the 21st century the day of admission should not influence patient outcomes,” said Paul Zajic from the Medical University Graz, Austria, who was lead author of the study.

The study analysed anonymised data for all 167 425 adult patients admitted to 119 ICUs in Austria between 2012 …

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