Key result
An educational program for rational cardiac biomarker testing significantly reduced the immediate concomitance of CK-MB with troponin tests (-0.13 tests per patient, P=0.0016).
Why the study?
Inappropriate low-value ordering of CK-MB remains frequent despite troponin being the recommended biomarker of choice for myocardial injury.
Does an educational intervention reduce the concomitant ordering of CK-MB and troponin tests in adult critically ill patients?
Does an educational intervention reduce the concomitant ordering of CK-MB and troponin tests in adult critically ill patients?
An educational intervention in the intensive care unit significantly reduced the inappropriate concomitant ordering of CK-MB and troponin tests without negatively impacting the diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Educational intervention reduced concomitant CK-MB/troponin orders in one ICU; leaves open generalizability and outcome impact in broader settings.
BACKGROUND: Although cardiac troponin is recommended as the biomarker of choice to evaluate myocardial injury, inappropriate low-value ordering practice is frequent, particularly routine ordering of creatine kinase-myocardial band (CK-MB) tests where troponin is available. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of an educational intervention for rational request of cardiac biomarkers in the intensive care unit. METHOD: We conducted a quasi-experimental, pre-post implementation study of an educational program (expository-dialogue presentation and disclosure of a decision algorithm) for rational cardiac biomarker testing in adult critically ill patients. The study was divided into two 12-month periods: pre-intervention (September 2017-August 2018) and post-intervention (October 2018-September 2019). An interrupted time series with a segmented regression model was applied to analyze variation over time in CK-MB and troponin testing. RESULTS: We included 4429 patients: 2181 patients in the pre-intervention period and 2248 patients in the post-intervention period. A reduction in the concomitance of CK-MB and troponin testing was observed (concomitance in 1415 tests in the pre-intervention period vs 348 tests in the post-intervention period). The interrupted time series analysis demonstrated a noticeable immediate reduction in the concomitance of CK-MB with troponin after the intervention (-0.13 tests per patient, P = 0.0016) but not in the secular trend for the concomitance. The proportion of patients with the acute coronary syndrome as a discharge diagnosis was not different between the pre- and post-intervention period. CONCLUSION: Our pre-post interventional study demonstrated a significant decrease in the concomitance of CK-MB and troponin tests. A rational high-value ordering practice of cardiac biomarkers is possible in critically ill patients and might be suitable for educational interventions.
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Tedesco et al. (2022) studied critically ill patients (n=4,429). Educational program for rational cardiac biomarker testing vs. Pre-intervention period was evaluated on Concomitance of CK-MB and troponin testing (-0.13 tests per patient, p=0.0016). An educational program for rational cardiac biomarker testing significantly reduced the immediate concomitance of CK-MB with troponin tests (-0.13 tests per patient, P=0.0016).
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