RT Journal Article
T1 Emergency severity level-3 patient flow based on point-of-care testing improves patient outcomes
A1 Jimenez-Barragan, Marta
A1 Rodriguez-Oliva, Manuel
A1 Sanchez-Mora, Catalina
A1 Navarro-Bustos, Carmen
A1 Fuentes-Cantero, Sandra
A1 Martin-Perez, Salomon
A1 Garrido-Castilla, Jose M.
A1 Undabeytia-Lopez, Luisa
A1 Luque-Cid, Antonio
A1 Miguel-Melendez, Juan de
A1 Leon-Justel, Antonio
K1 Point-of-care
K1 Emergency department
K1 Overcrowding
K1 Servicio de urgencia en hospital
K1 Sistemas de atención de punto
AB Background: Overcrowding of the Emergency Department is rapidly becoming a global challenge and a major source of concern for emergency physicians. The desire to improve Emergency Department throughput requires novel approaches to patient flow.Materials and methods: We conducted a prospective and cluster-randomized study, to evaluate the impact in patient outcomes of a new patient flow based on Point-of-Care Testing (POCT). A total of 380 Emergency Severity Level-3 patients were enrolled and studied in two different groups, interventional arm (laboratory analyses performed on POCT analyzers implemented in the Emergency Department) or control arm (central laboratory). The primary outcome was the Emergency Department length of stay. Secondary outcome included the time to first medical intervention, the laboratory turnaround time and the time to disposition decision. Readmission within the 7 days after discharge was also calculated.Results: Length of stay significantly decreased by 88.50 min (from 247.00 to 158.50), time to disposition decision by 89.00 min (from 192.00 to 103.00) and laboratory turnaround time by 67.11 min (from 89.84 to 22.73) in the POCT group. No increase in readmission was found.Conclusion: Our strategy based on POCT represents a good approach to optimize patient flow in the Emergency Department and it should be seen as a starting point for further studies focusing on improving throughput.
PB Elsevier
SN 1873-3492
YR 2021
FD 2021-09-16
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10668/23212
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10668/23212
LA en
NO Jimenez-Barragan M, Rodriguez-Oliva M, Sanchez-Mora C, Navarro-Bustos C, Fuentes-Cantero S, Martin-Perez S, et al. Emergency severity level-3 patient flow based on point-of-care testing improves patient outcomes. Clin Chim Acta. 2021 Dec;523:144-151
DS RISalud
RD Apr 6, 2025