How to Fix the Dreaded "Weekend Effect" in Hospital Deaths

Feeling all alone out there on weekends/holidays/night shifts?

You’re not the only one. Any clinician involved in care of time sensitive emergent patients has experienced the frustration of delays in care during these “off times.” Unfortunately, strokes, STEMIs and traumas do not take time off. Two recent studies (here and here) released in London and Birmingham, UK allude to how process variations have resulted in a decrease in quality of stroke care. Specifically, the quality measurement of door to needle in less than 60 minutes took a hit, and was directly linked to day of week and time of day.

Why are there process variations during these off times? The reasons are numerous, but it all comes down to communication breakdowns and faulty logistics when staff and resources are outside the facility and/or spread across the city. It is much more difficult to get the right people (staff and patient) at the right place, at the right time, when all are coming from different directions (herding cats comes to mind).

Pulsara brings all those resources onto one secure communication platform, where critical patient information including EKG’s, stroke scores, lab values, ETA’s, benchmarks and much more are immediately available to all team members with no phones, pagers, faxes or email necessary. No breakdowns in communication, NO MATTER the hour. In fact, we've seen a 58% improvement in D2B < 60 minutes in after hours cases! Check out our after-hours research poster for more details.

Read the full "Weekend Effect" article right here.