Hospital Mortality Lower for Patients Treated by Female Physicians

MONDAY, April 22, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Patients have lower hospital mortality and readmission rates when treated by female physicians, with a larger benefit observed for female patients, according to a study published online April 23 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Atsushi Miyawaki, Ph.D., from the School of Public Health at The University of Tokyo, and colleagues conducted a retrospective observational study using Medicare claims data to examine whether the association between physician sex and hospital outcomes varies between female and male patients hospitalized with medical conditions during 2016 to 2019. Data were included for 458,108 female and 318,819 male patients; 31.1 and 30.6 percent, respectively, were treated by a female physician.

The researchers found that patient mortality was lower for female and male patients when treated by female physicians; the benefit of receiving care from female physicians was larger for female than male patients (difference-in-differences, −0.16 percentage points; 95 percent confidence interval, −0.42 to 0.10). The difference between female and male physicians was large and clinically meaningful for female patients (adjusted mortality rates, 8.15 versus 8.8 percent; average marginal effect, −0.24 percentage points; 95 percent confidence interval, −0.41 to −0.07). An important difference between female and male physicians could be ruled out for male patients (10.15 versus 10.23 percent; average marginal effect, −0.08 percentage points; 95 percent confidence interval, −0.29 to 0.14]). For patients” readmission rates, the pattern was similar.

“We found that patients generally 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, at least in the inpatient setting,” the authors write.

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