Key result
A chief complaint-based cardiac triage strategy significantly reduced median door-to-ECG time from 5 to 4 minutes and increased the achievement rate of door-to-ECG time <10 minutes from 78.9% to 95.0%.
Why the study?
Timely performing electrocardiography is crucial for early detection of STEMI, prompting the need for strategies to shorten door-to-ECG time.
Does a chief complaint-based cardiac triage strategy reduce door-to-ECG and door-to-balloon times in patients with STEMI?
Cohort (n=117)
No
Does a chief complaint-based cardiac triage strategy reduce door-to-ECG and door-to-balloon times in patients with STEMI?
A modified chief complaint-based cardiac triage strategy significantly reduced door-to-ECG and door-to-balloon times for STEMI patients in the emergency department.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Chief complaint-based triage was associated with shorter door-to-ECG times in this STEMI cohort; leaves open need for randomized trials before practice change.
Timely performing electrocardiography (ECG) is crucial for early detection of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). For shortening door-to-ECG time, a chief complaint-based “cardiac triage” protocol comprising (1) raising alert among medical staff with bedside triage tags, and (2) immediate bedside ECG after focused history-taking was implemented at the emergency department (ED) in a single tertiary referral center. All patients diagnosed with STEMI visiting the ED between November 2017 and January 2020 were retrospectively reviewed to investigate the effectiveness of strategy before and after implantation. Analysis of a total of 117 ED patients with STEMI (pre-intervention group, n = 57; post-intervention group, n = 60) showed significant overall improvements in median door-to-ECG time from 5 to 4 minutes ( p = 0.02), achievement rate of door-to-ECG time < 10 minutes from 45–57% ( p = 0.01), median door-to-balloon time from 81 to 70 minutes ( p < 0.01). Significant trends of increase in achievement rates for door-to-ECG and door-to-balloon times ( p = 0.01 and p = 0.006, respectively) was noticed after strategy implementation. The incidence of door-to-ECG time > 10 minutes for those with initially underestimated disease severity was also reduced from 90–10% ( p < 0.01). In conclusion, a chief complaint-based “cardiac triage” strategy successfully improved the quality of emergency care for STEMI patients through reducing delays in diagnosis and treatment.
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Su et al. (2021) conducted a cohort in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (n=117). Chief complaint-based cardiac triage protocol vs. Standard five-level triage system was evaluated on Median door-to-ECG time (minutes) (p=0.02). A chief complaint-based cardiac triage strategy significantly reduced median door-to-ECG time from 5 to 4 minutes and increased the achievement rate of door-to-ECG time <10 minutes from 78.9% to 95.0%.
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