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Mortality among High Risk Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction Admitted to U.S. Teaching-Intensive Hospitals in July: A Retrospective Observational Study.
Circulation. 2013 Oct 23;
Authors: Jena AB, Sun EC, Romley JA
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Studies of whether inpatient mortality in U.S. teaching hospitals rises in July as a result of organizational disruption and relative inexperience of new physicians ('July effect') find small and mixed results, perhaps because study populations primarily include low-risk inpatients whose mortality outcomes are unlikely to exhibit a July effect.
METHODS AND RESULTS: Using the U.S. Nationwide Inpatient sample, we estimated difference-in-difference models of mortality, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) rates, and bleeding complication rates, for high and low risk patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) admitted to 98 teaching-intensive and 1353 non-teaching-intensive hospitals during May and July 2002 to 2008. Among patients in the top quartile of predicted AMI mortality (high risk), adjusted mortality was lower in May than July in teaching-intensive hospitals (18.8% in May, 22.7% in July, p<0.01), but similar in non-teaching-intensive hospitals (22.5% in May, 22.8% in July, p=0.70). Among patients in the lowest three quartiles of predicted AMI mortality (low risk), adjusted mortality was similar in May and July in both teaching-intensive hospitals (2.1% in May, 1.9% in July, p=0.45) and non-teaching-intensive hospitals (2.7% in May, 2.8% in July, p=0.21). Differences in PCI and bleeding complication rates could not explain the observed July mortality effect among high risk patients.
CONCLUSIONS: High risk AMI patients experience similar mortality in teaching- and non-teaching-intensive hospitals in July, but lower mortality in teaching-intensive hospitals in May. Low risk patients experience no such "July effect" in teaching-intensive hospitals.
PMID: 24152859 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]