Day of Admission Dictates Length of Stay for Heart Failure

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Hospitalizations that started on Sundays, Mondays or Tuesdays had the shortest duration, while those starting on Thursdays or Fridays had the longest. Heart failure patients were most likely to be discharged on a Friday and least likely to be discharged on a Sunday. That means that some patients who were ready to be discharged on a weekend were held over.

Dr. John P. Erwin III is an assistant professor of internal medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and senior staff cardiologist at Scott & White Hospital in Temple. Discussing the new findings, he said that hospitals participating in clinical trials like those included in the study are more likely to pay close attention to patients. "We don't know if this [the study findings] can be generalized to the majority of hospitals," he said. "Patients enrolled in a study have closer follow-up and closer adherence to getting the right drugs."

Changing hospital staffing patterns could shave $360 million off the $33.2 billion annual price tag for heart failure care by reducing lengths of stay, the study authors suggested. For one hospital with 1,000 heart failure hospitalizations a year, it might save $330,000 or more, they said.

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"This would be something that would be really amenable to change," Fonarow said. "A shift in staffing and philosophy to facilitate weekend discharges should be readily achievable."

Many hospitals may already be looking into this, he said.

"Most hospitals do run a little bit tighter staffing nights and weekends, [but] over the last three to five years, most hospitals have been actually addressing this as part of safety and quality improvement initiatives, realizing that patients are sick 24/7, and we need to make sure we have adequate amounts of staffing for hospitals," Fonarow said.

More information

To learn more about heart failure, visit the American Heart Association.

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