Emergency department use of a high-sensitivity point-of-care troponin assay reduces length of stay: an implementation study preliminary report.

AIMS

Point-of-care (POC) high-sensitivity troponin (hs-cTn) assays within a clinical pathway may safely reduce length of stay (LoS) for patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with possible acute myocardial infarction (AMI). In this early report, we present the first evaluation of a POC hs-cTn in real-life care.

METHODS AND RESULTS

In adult patients presenting to ED investigated for possible AMI, we compared the LoS in patients assessed with a troponin in the 8 weeks before (usual-care phase) and the 8 weeks following introduction of the Siemens Atellica VTLi POC hs-cTnI for decision-making (intervention phase). The VTLi replaced the laboratory (Beckman Coulter) assay as the default hs-cTn test within the clinical pathway. This was the only change to the pathway process. The safety outcome was first event AMI or cardiac death within 30 days. There were 2376 presentations in the usual-care phase with 188 individuals with AMI and 2392 in the intervention phase with 198 AMI. In the intervention phase, there was a mean (95% CI) reduction in LoS of 32 min (22-41 min) compared with the usual-care phase. This represents 21.4 fewer patient-hours in the ED each day (1196 in the 8-week period). In both phases, the pathway correctly identified all cases of AMI at index attendance. There were four follow-up events (two usual-care, two intervention) within 30 days.

CONCLUSION

The deployment of a hs-cTn POC analyser into a large ED safely reduced length of stay. If translatable to other EDs, this could represent an important advancement to patient care.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, No. ACTRN12619001189112.