Study: Off-Hours Heart Attacks More Deadly

Your chance of dying from a heart attack is greater if you seek care at night or on a weekend, a research review finds. The study put together results from 48 earlier studies. They included nearly 1.9 million patients. The studies were from the United States, Canada and Europe. People who arrived at hospitals during off-hours had a 5% higher risk of death in the hospital than those who came in on weekdays. The risk of death within 30 days was also 5% higher. Researchers estimated that this led to 6,000 extra deaths each year in the United States alone. One possible reason for the difference is treatment delays during off-hours. The study estimated that for one common type of heart attack, a 15-minute delay could increase death by 10% to 15%. The journal BMJ published the study online.