Emergency severity level-3 patient flow based on point-of-care testing improves patient outcomes

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.

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.

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.

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.