Key result
Among patients presenting with acute chest pain, 59.4% achieved the recommended door-to-ECG time of within 10 minutes, with a mean time of 12.06 minutes.
Why the study?
The study was conducted to measure the door-to-ECG time of patients presenting with chest pain at a cardiac emergency unit.
Cross-Sectional (n=170)
No
A clinical audit revealed that 59.4% of patients presenting with acute chest pain achieved the recommended door-to-ECG time of within 10 minutes, highlighting bed unavailability as the main cause of delay.
Door-to-ECG delays persist from bed shortages; hypothesis-generating for ED workflow interventions before practice change.
Objective: To measure the door-to-ECG time of patients presenting with chest pain at a Cardiac Emergency Unit. Study Design: Descriptive Cross-Sectional. Place and Duration of Study: Armed Force Institute of Cardiology/National Institute of Heart Disease, Emergency Department (ER) from Feb2022 to Apr 2022. Methodology: A total of 170 patients presenting to the ER with chest pain were reported. Their demographics were entered alongside the nature (cardiac/non-cardiac) and duration of their chest pain after which the time the first ECG strip was drawn till the time it was interpreted by a doctor (Door-To-ECG time) was recorded on a questionnaire. The patients were categorized in 4 different groups based on their ECG findings and were followed till their clinical decisions (PCI/Admission/Discharge/Referral) within the ER were made. Results: Out of 170 patients, 101(59.4%) had a door-to-ECG time within 10 minutes. Amongst these 101 patients, 23(22.7%)patients were diagnosed with STEMI and shifted for PCI, 15(14.8%) had NSTEMI and were admitted for management,41(40.6%) had cardiac chest pain without ECG changes and were admitted for workup while 22(21.8%) had non-cardiac chest pain and were discharged with out-patient follow-up or referred elsewhere. Non-availability of a bed in the emergency department accounted for the majority (49.3%) of the patients whose door-to-ECG time was more than 10 minutes while a higher ratio of patients that needed to be attended by doctors was identified as the second most common cause of delay(31.9%). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the door-to-ECG time recorded for patients at our setup was almost 10 minutes....
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Sami et al. (2022) conducted a cross-sectional in Acute chest pain (n=170). Emergency department triage and ECG performance was evaluated on Door-to-ECG time within 10 minutes. Among patients presenting with acute chest pain, 59.4% achieved the recommended door-to-ECG time of within 10 minutes, with a mean time of 12.06 minutes.
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