Analysis of the Weekend Effect on Mortality, Diagnostic Coronary Angiography, and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in Acute Myocardial Infarction Across Rural US Hospitals.

Background: Rural hospitals face several unique challenges in delivering healthcare to an underserved population. Achieving time-sensitive goals in a resource-scarce facility is often a difficult task without the right team at hand. Resources are further depleted on the weekends, exposing understaffed hospitals to poorer outcomes. Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) mortality depends on timely diagnosis and intervention. It is unknown to what extent resource shortages impact rural hospitals during weekends and how they affect AMI mortality.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on patients admitted on weekends with AMI using the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) 2019. Patients with type II non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) and missing information were excluded. The rates and timing of in-hospital diagnostic coronary angiograms, PCIs (percutaneous coronary interventions), and in-hospital mortality were studied. Regression models were used for data analyses.

Results: A total of 161,625 patients met the inclusion criteria (58,690 females (36%), 114,830 Caucasians (71%), 17,910 African American (11%), 13,920 Hispanic (8.6%); mean (SD) age, 66.5 (0.5) years), including 47,665 (29.5%) ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and 113,960 (70.5%) NSTEMI. Patients admitted to rural hospitals were less likely to undergo diagnostic coronary angiogram (adjusted odds ratio (aOR), 0.69; CI, 0.57-0.83; <0.001) and PCI (aOR, 0.83; CI, 0.72-0.96; 0.012). Rural hospitals had lesser odds of early diagnostic angiograms (aOR, 0.79; CI, 0.67-0.95; <0.05) and PCI (aOR, 0.78; CI, 0.66-0.92; <0.05) within 24 hours. The mortality difference between rural and urban hospitals was not significant (aOR, 1.08; CI, 0.85-1.4; 0.52).

Conclusions: Diagnostic coronary angiograms and PCI are performed at a lesser rate in rural hospitals during weekends. This trend did not affect rural AMI mortality.