Processing blood tests using point-of-care devices can slightly reduce the length of time to disposition decisions for emergency department patients for a moderate increase in cost, according to a study in the Emergency Medicine Journal.
Researchers tested the blood of adult ED patients using either a point-of-care device or the laboratory. The average time to a disposition decision for patients whose blood was tested with a POC device was 3.24 hours compared with 3.50 hours for patients whose blood was tested in the laboratory — a difference of 7.6 percent. The shorter processing time was most pronounced for patients enrolled by senior staff, with a 19.1 percent decrease in time to disposition decision and a 15.6 percent decrease in ED length of stay compared with the control group.
The average pathology costs were $12 greater in the POC device group than the control group. In addition, "the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was $113 per hour saved in time to disposition decision for POC compared with standard laboratory testing," according to the study.
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