Does faster troponin testing shorten emergency department length of stay?

“These findings are important to healthcare providers worldwide as they contradict current assumptions that implementing 0/1-hour testing improves patient management in the ED. It seems that other processes – including specialist review, admissions workflow and bed availability – may have a greater influence on ED length of stay than the testing strategy alone. Approaches such as integrating the 0/1-hour pathway into electronic healthcare records as a clinical decision-support tool may be beneficial to bring the benefits of rapid testing to patients and the healthcare system as a whole.”

“The time point of diagnosis seems to be a different time point from the time point of ED discharge. The availability of nurses and physicians rather than the availability of the information was the rate-limiting step.”

“However, challenges remain in that faster ED diagnostics do not necessarily translate into faster patient care. Once a cardiac troponin result is available, clinicians must still integrate it with the patient's symptoms, electrocardiogram (ECG), history, examination and overall clinical risk before deciding on further investigation, treatment or discharge.”