Weekend Surgery and Outcomes of Patients Admitted for Non-Elective Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery

Abstract Background The "weekend effect" is a purported phenomenon whereby patients admitted for time-sensitive medical and surgical conditions on a weekend suffer worse outcomes than those admitted on a weekday. There are limited data on weekend effect for non-elective coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Methods We studied outcomes for weekend vs. weekday surgery for all adult patients in the 2013-14 National Inpatient Sample (NIS) undergoing non-elective CABG. Results Of 101,510 patients undergoing non-elective CABG, 12,795 (12.6%) patients underwent CABG on the day of admission (n = 1,230 for weekend and 11,565 for weekday admission, respectively). Patients undergoing surgery on a weekend were more likely to have a diagnosis of STE-ACS (47.2% vs 20.2%, P Conclusions Patients undergoing CABG on a weekend had higher crude mortality but similar risk-adjusted mortality compared to their weekday counterparts. Some of the excess mortality observed for weekend surgery is likely attributable to a sicker cohort of patients undergoing surgery on the weekend.