• Atsushi Miyawaki, Anupam B Jena, Laura G Burke, Jose F Figueroa, and Yusuke Tsugawa.
• Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. Electronic address: amiyawaki-tky@umin.ac.jp.
• Ann Emerg Med. 2023 Sep 1; 82 (3): 301312301-312.

Study ObjectiveTo determine the association between emergency physicians' ages and patient mortality after emergency department visits.MethodsThis observational study used a 20% random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged 65 to 89 years treated by emergency physicians at EDs from 2016 to 2017. We investigated whether 7-day mortality after ED visits differed by the age of the emergency physician, adjusting for patient and physician characteristics and hospital fixed effects.ResultsWe observed 2,629,464 ED visits treated by 32,570 emergency physicians (mean age 43.5). We found that patients treated by younger emergency physicians had lower mortality rates compared with those treated by older physicians. Adjusted 7-day mortality was 1.33% for patients treated by emergency physicians aged less than 40 years, 1.36% (adjusted difference, 0.03%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.001% to 0.06%) for physicians ages 40 to 49, 1.40% (0.08%; 95% CI 0.04% to 0.12%) for physicians ages 50 to 59, and 1.43% (0.11%; 95% CI 0.06% to 0.16%) for those with a physician age of 60 years and more. Similar patterns were observed when stratified by the patient's disposition (discharged vs admitted), and the association was more pronounced for patients with higher severity of illness.ConclusionsMedicare patients aged 65 to 89 years treated by emergency physicians aged under 40 years had lower 7-day mortality rates than those treated by physicians aged 50 to 59 years and 60 years or older within the same hospital. Potential mechanisms explaining the association between emergency physician age and patient mortality (eg, differences in training received and other unobservable patient/physician characteristics) are uncertain and require further study.Copyright © 2023 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

22 keywords...

hide…