Introduction And Objectives: The length of hospital stay for uncomplicated myocardial infarction is still a debatable issue. Our study tries to establish the rate of patients amenable early discharged and the safety of this practice.

Patients And Methods: We studied retrospectively the clinical features, in-hospital events and 30-day follow up of 238 patients discharged early (5 or 6 days) during the last three years. These patients were compared with the remaining group of 929 patients discharged after a conventional stay (mean 10.4 days) in the same time frame.

Results: The mean hospital stay in the early discharged group was 5.4 days. They had no ischemic, arrhythmic or haemodynamic complications in the acute phase. In the 30-day follow up there was only one death (at the 14 th post-myocardial infarction day) and 17 readmissions to the hospital, none with re-infarction. By contrast, there were 14 deaths and 43 readmissions among the patients with the standard stay at the hospital.

Conclusions: At least 20% of patients with uncomplicated myocardial infarction can be discharged early. This practice seems to be safe in low risk groups, and is not associated with a higher rate of complications when compared with longer hospital stays.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0300-8932(98)74747-5DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

hospital stay
8
uncomplicated myocardial
8
myocardial infarction
8
early discharged
8
30-day follow
8
patients discharged
8
discharged early
8
patients
6
discharged
5
[early discharge
4

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!