Longer Lengths of Stay and Higher Risk of Mortality among Inpatients of Physicians with More Years in Practice

BackgroundMore physician years in practice have been associated with less frequent guideline adherence, but it is unknown whether years in practice are associated with patient outcomes.MethodsWe examined all inpatients on the teaching service of an urban hospital from July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2004. Admissions were assigned to attending physicians quasi-randomly. Years in practice was defined as the number of years the attending physician held a medical license. We divided physicians into 4 groups (0-5, 6-10, 11-20, and >20 years in practice), and used negative binomial and logistic regression to adjust for patient characteristics and estimate associations between years in practice and length-of-stay, readmission, and mortality.ResultsFifty-nine physicians and 6572 admissions were examined. Although the 4 inpatient groups had similar demographic and clinical characteristics, physicians with more years in practice had longer mean lengths of stay (4.77, 5.29, 5.42, and 5.31 days for physicians with 0-5, 6-10, 11-20, and >20 years in practice, respectively, P = .001). After adjustment, inpatients of physicians with more than 20 years in practice had higher risk for both in-hospital mortality (odds ratio 1.71; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-2.76) and 30-day mortality (odds ratio 1.51, 95% confidence interval, 1.06-2.16) than inpatients of physicians with 0-5 years in practice.ConclusionInpatient care by physicians with more years in practice is associated with higher risk of mortality. Quality-of-care interventions should be developed to maintain inpatient skills for physicians.