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Studies from several countries have shown that stroke patients admitted during the weekend have higher mortality than those admitted during the week. However, whether the increased mortality results from inferior stroke care or from unmeasured differences in case mix is unclear. Therefore, investigators retrospectively used English national administrative data to stratify the quality of stroke care by the day of admission, using several validated outcome measures.
During a 1-year period, more than 90,000 stroke patients were admitted to English National Health Service hospitals, about 25% on weekends. Baseline patient characteristics did not differ substantially between weekday and weekend admissions; stroke severity was not measured. Compar…