Comparison of Hospital Mortality and Readmission Rates by Physician and Patient Sex (Annals of Internal Medicine)
Summary: Little is known as to whether the effects of a physician’s sex on patients' clinical outcomes vary by patient sex. Authors examine whether the association between a physician's sex and hospital outcomes varied between female and male patients hospitalized with medical conditions.
Researchers studied a 20% random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries hospitalized with medical conditions during 2016 to 2019 and treated by hospitalists. The primary outcomes were patients' 30-day mortality and readmission rates, adjusted for patient and physician characteristics and hospital-level averages of exposures (effectively comparing physicians within the same hospital).
Findings: Of 458,108 female and 318, 819 male patients, 142,465 (31.1%) and 97,500 (30.6%) were treated by female physicians, respectively. Both female and male patients had a lower patient mortality when treated by female physicians; however, the benefit of receiving care from female physicians was larger for female patients than for male patients. For female patients, the difference between female and male physicians was large and clinically meaningful. For male patients, an important difference between female and male physicians could be ruled out.
The pattern was similar for patients' readmission rates. Findings indicate that patients have lower mortality and readmission rates when treated by female physicians, and the benefit of receiving treatments from female physicians is larger for female patients than for male patients.
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