Associations between day of admission and day of surgery on outcome and resource utilization in infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome who underwent stage i palliation (from the Single Ventricle Reconstruction trial)

Newborns with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and other single right ventricular variants require substantial health care resources. Weekend acute care has been associated with worse outcomes and increased resource use in other populations but has not been studied in patients with single ventricle. Subjects of the Single Ventricle Reconstruction trial were classified by whether they had a weekend admission and by day of the week of Norwood procedure. The primary outcome was hospital length of stay (LOS); secondary outcomes included transplant-free survival, intensive care unit (ICU) LOS, and days of mechanical ventilation. The Student's t test with log transformation and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test were used to analyze associations. Admission day was categorized for 533 of 549 subjects (13% weekend). The day of the Norwood was Thursday/Friday in 39%. There was no difference in median hospital LOS, transplant-free survival, ICU LOS, or days ventilated for weekend versus non-weekend admissions. Day of the Norwood procedure was not associated with a difference in hospital LOS, transplant-free survival, ICU LOS, or days ventilated. Prenatally diagnosed infants born on the weekend had lower mean birth weight, younger gestational age, and were more likely to be intubated but did not have a difference in measured outcomes. In conclusion, in this cohort of patients with single right ventricle, neither weekend admission nor end-of-the-week Norwood procedure was associated with increased use of hospital resources or poorer outcomes. We speculate that the complex postoperative course following the Norwood procedure outweighs any impact that day of admission or operation may have on these outcomes.