[What about the weekend effect? Impact of the day of admission on in-hospital mortality, length of stay and cost of hospitalization]. / ¿Qué hay del efecto fin de semana? Impacto del día de ingreso sobre la mortalidad intrahospitalaria, la duración de la estancia y el coste de la hospitalización.

INTRODUCTION: There is no agreement on the existence of the weekend effect in healthcare or, if it exists, on its possible causes. The objective of the study was to evaluate the differences in healthcare outcomes between patients admitted on weekdays or weekends in a high-complexity hospital. METHODS: Observational and retrospective study of patients admitted between 2016 and 2019 in a public hospital with more than 1300 beds. Hospitalization episodes were classified according to whether admission took place between Friday at 3:00 p.m. and the following Monday at 8:00 a.m. (weekend admission) or not (admission on weekdays). Mortality, length of stay and associated costs were compared, applying their respective risk-adjustment models. RESULTS: Of the total 169,495 hospitalization episodes analyzed, 48,201 (28.44%) corresponded to the weekend, presenting an older age (54.9 years vs. 53.9; P<.001), a higher crude mortality rate (5.22% vs. 4.59%; P<0.001), and a longer average length of stay (7.42 days vs. 6.74; P<.001), than those admitted on weekdays. The median crude cost of stay was lower (€731.25 vs. €850.88; P<0.001). No significant differences were found when applying the adjustment models, with a risk-adjusted mortality ratio of 1.03 (0.99-1.08) vs. 0.98 (0.95-1.01), risk-adjusted length of stay of 1.002 (0.98-1.005) vs. 0.999 (0.997-1.002) and risk-adjusted cost of stay of 0.928 (0.865-0.994) vs. 0.901 (0.843-0.962). CONCLUSION: The results of the study reveal that the assistance provided during the weekends does not imply worse health outcomes or increased costs. Comparing the impact between hospitals will require a future homogenization of temporal criteria and risk adjustment models.

Validation of a liquid chromatographic method for the determination of ranitidine hydrochloride residues on surfaces in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

A liquid chromatographic method for determination of the residues of ranitidine hydrochloride on various surfaces employed in drug manufacture is described. Cotton swabs, moistened with a methanol-water (1:1, v/v) mixture were used to remove any residues of drugs from glass, vinyl, and stainless steel surfaces, and gave recoveries of 85%, 78% and 90%, respectively. Residues were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography on a C18 column at 25 degrees C with methanol-ammonium acetate (40:60 v/v) pH 6.7 as the mobile phase and detection at 320 nm. The method was validated over a concentration range of 20-10 000 ng/ml and had a detection limit of 2 ng/ml.