Night shift proves more fatal for patients that cardiac arrest
February 24, 2008 by Kendra James, RN
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
This made me sit up and take notice since I used to work nights in the hospital…
The graveyard shift is the worst time to call code blue, a new study finds. Patients who go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital are more likely to die if it happens after 11 p.m., when staffing may be lower or patients are watched less closely.
The ER is the only place that there was no difference in death rates. Among day shifts in all other units hospital wide the success rate of patients that cardiac arrested was 20% and the night shift rate was 15%. Either way it is not real good odds but I would take the first over the latter.
Why the difference? I would suppose most would blame it on fatigue and lower staff numbers. Interesting enough, while weekends had lower success rated then weekdays they were not nearly as pronounced as night versus day.
