Emergency Department use of a high-sensitivity Point-of-Care troponin assay reduces length of stay: an implementation study preliminary report.

Background: 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: 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.

Results: 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 minutes (22 mins to 41 mins) 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 (2 usual-care, 2 intervention) within 30d.

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.