The Impact of Night-time Emergency Department Presentation on Upper Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage Outcomes

The aim was to investigate the impact of night-time emergency department (ED) presentation on outcomes of patients admitted for acute upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage (UGIH).

The relationship between time of ED presentation and outcomes of gastrointestinal hemorrhage is unclear.

Using the 2016 and 2017 Florida State Inpatient Databases which provide times of ED arrival, we identified and categorized adults hospitalized for UGIH to daytime (07:00 to 18:59 h) and night-time (19:00 to 06:59 h) based on the time of ED presentation. We matched both groups with propensity scores, and assessed their clinical outcomes including all-cause in-hospital mortality, in-hospital endoscopy utilization, length of stay (LOS), total hospitalization costs, and 30-day all-cause readmission rates.

Of the identified 38,114 patients with UGIH, 89.4% (n=34,068) had acute nonvariceal hemorrhage (ANVH), while 10.6% (n=4046) had acute variceal hemorrhage (AVH). Compared with daytime patients, ANVH patients admitted at night-time had higher odds of in-hospital mortality (odds ratio: 1.32; 95% confidence interval: 1.06-1.60), lower odds of in-patient endoscopy (odds ratio: 0.83; 95% confidence interval: 0.77-0.90), higher total hospital costs ($9911 vs. $9545, P <0.016), but similar LOS and readmission rates. Night-time AVH patients had a shorter LOS (5.4 vs. 5.8 d, P =0.045) but similar mortality rates, endoscopic utilization, total hospitalization costs, and readmission rates as daytime patients.

Patients arriving in the ED at night-time with ANVH had worse outcomes (mortality, hospitalization costs, and endoscopy utilization) compared with daytime patients. However, those with AVH had comparable outcomes irrespective of ED arrival time.