Arrival Time Affects Heart Attack Survival

A new study has shown that most heart attack patients who arrive at the emergency department (ED) during normal office hours receive more timely treatment and have a better chance of surviving than patients who arrive during off-hours and weekends.

The research revealed that more than half of all heart attack patients arrive at the ED during off-hours and week-ends and experience significantly longer wait times for treatment than patients who arrive during normal office hours. Also, more deaths occurred during off-hours and weekends than on normal weekday office hours. Patients treated with angioplasty, for example, experienced a 21-minute longer wait time than patients treated during normal working hours. Overall, patients arriving during off-hours or on weekends had a 7% higher death rate that patients arriving during normal weekday office hours.

"Ideally, patients with an emergency should receive the same quality of care no matter what time of day or day of the week they arrive at the hospital, but for heart attack patients, this is not currently happening,” said David Magid, emergency physician and lead author of the study, published in the August 17, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). "Hospitals that commit to treating heart attacks with balloon angioplasty should perform it in a timely fashion.”

The study was conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Clinical Research Unit (CRU, Aurora, CO, USA), which conducts research into practice and works to promote evidence-based practices and service-oriented cost-effective medical care.