Lower Survival Rates After In-Hospital Cardiac Arrests During Nights and Weekends

Hospitalized patients bear significant risk for death from their acute and comorbid conditions. Inpatients who experience cardiac arrests have a higher survival rate than do people who have out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, likely because of the immediate availability of trained staff, equipment, and processes that can affect outcomes. However, most hospitals do not have the same staffing and services available at night and on weekends as they do during daytime hours.

In this large retrospective observational study, investigators assessed survival after pulseless cardiac arrests in 86,748 consecutive patients at more than 500 hospitals. They defined day and evening arrests as those occurring from 7:00 am to 10:59 pm and night arrests as those…