According to a recent retrospective study that compared the outcomes of patients admitted to teaching hospitals who underwent emergency general surgery (EGS) during July and August versus September through June, which of the following statements is most likely true?
The July phenomenon refers to the perception that there is an increased risk of medical errors during the first month of the graduate medical education year. To examine the validity of this association, the authors of a recent study examined data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) on adult patients presenting to a teaching hospital with a primary diagnosis code for an EGS condition between 2007 and 2011. The NIS is the largest publicly available database of U.S. hospital billing data and is considered representative of 95 percent of the U.S. patient population. The investigators analyzed data by month of the year for both risk-adjusted mortality rates and complication rates. They...
