Press Release
Patient Side Point-of-Care Testing in the Emergency Department Enables Quicker Treatment Decisions for Patients with Chest Pain
Helps Physicians Make Treatment Decisions Up to 20 Minutes Faster Than
Standard Lab Testing
August 19, 2008
East Windsor, New Jersey — Patient side point-of-care testing – where
diagnostic testing is conducted at or near the site of the patient – enables
doctors to make decisions on patients presenting with chest pain up to 20
minutes faster than those whose lab tests are evaluated by a standard lab,
according to a study appearing this month in the peer-reviewed journal
Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The study, entitled A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing
Central Laboratory and Point-of-Care Cardiac Market Testing Strategies: The
Disposition Impacted by Serial Point of Care Markers in Acute Coronary
Syndromes Trial (DISPO-ACS), is the first-ever randomized controlled
clinical trial directly evaluating the impact of patient side point-of-care
testing on 2,000 patients with chest pain, or possible acute coronary syndrome
(ACS), on the length of stay in the emergency department (ED). It was led by
Richard Ryan, M.D., vice chairman, Department of Emergency Medicine at the
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The four EDs involved in the
study are The Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, William Beaumont Hospitals in
Detroit, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University.
"For patients presenting with chest pain, rapid diagnosis and the
initiation of treatment can mean the difference between life and death,"
according to Dr. Ryan. "Ask yourself this question, 'Would I rather wait
more than an hour to find out if I was having a heart attack or would I want to
know in 15 minutes?' The answer 100 percent of
the time would be ‘the sooner the better, for my heart, my health, my life.'
For these reasons, the study findings are very significant," he said.
The study results also illustrate conclusively that patient side
point-of-care testing beats the turnaround time (the time between the drawing
of a blood sample and the receipt of test result) of less than 60 minutes
recommended by the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology,
European Society of Cardiology and the National Academy of Clinical
Biochemistry's treatment guidelines. The preferred turnaround time, according
to the guidelines, is less than 30 minutes.
The patient side point-of-care testing in this study was conducted using the
Abbott i-STAT® System, an advanced, handheld, diagnostic tool that provides
real-time lab-quality results within minutes to accelerate the patient care
decision-making process.
"The i-STAT results got to the doctor an average of 45 minutes faster
than the lab results, and that's a lot of time when heart muscle is dying,"
said Christopher J. Lindsell, Ph.D., University of Cincinnati Medical Center
and a study investigator. "This is why i-STAT
patient side point-of-care testing demonstrated a trend toward reducing length
of stay in the ED for both admitted and discharged patients."
Patient side point-of-care testing with i-STAT
Troponin, which is used to help diagnose a heart attack, beats the 60-minute
recommended turnaround time 98 percent of the
time, compared to 53 percent for standard lab
testing. Moreover, patient side point-of-care testing with i-STAT Troponin beats the preferred 30-minute
turnaround time 87 percent of the time, compared
to 3 percent for standard lab testing.
In addition to the benefits to patient care, i-STAT point-of-care testing with troponin contributed
to as much as a 20-minute reduction in overall length of stay for some patients
presenting in the ED with chest pain. The study authors concluded that based on
such results, an additional 60 hours per month in ED bed availability could be
realized in a facility that averaged a minimum of four chest pain patients per
day.
The study also noted that when implemented as one of the key components of
an overall process improvement strategy, patient side point-of-care testing
with the i-STAT System can positively impact the
overall efficiency of an ED's system.
This brings to five the number of recent peer-reviewed studies that have
recently been published or accepted for publication that demonstrate the
significant benefits of patient side point-of-care testing in EDs. The other
four studies were conducted at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Vanderbilt University
Medical Center, the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and Beth
Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston.
The Abbott i-STAT System accelerates patient care decision-making at the
patient's side with the industry's most comprehensive menu of tests in a single
platform. The i-STAT System's menu includes diagnostic and treatment indicators
related to disease state management and clinical practice guidelines supporting
a patient-centric approach to health care delivery.
The i-STAT analyzer is currently in use in one out of every three U.S.
hospitals (a total of 1,800 hospitals) and more than 500 EDs. With more than
50,000 placements in high-acuity settings worldwide and 35 million test
cartridges produced annually, i-STAT has a global
impact on point-of-care testing at the patient's side.
The study was made possible with funding from Abbott Point of Care, which
had no role in or influence on the study designs or results.
The study is available online at www.annemergmed.com.
About Abbott Point of Care
Abbott Point of Care,
based in East Windsor, New Jersey, develops, manufactures, and markets critical
medical diagnostic and data management products for rapid blood analysis.
Abbott Point of Care is a division of Abbott.
About Abbott
Abbott (
NYSE: ABT) is a global, broad-based health care company devoted to the
discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceuticals and
medical products, including nutritionals, devices and diagnostics. The company
employs more than 68,000 people and markets its products in more than 130
countries.
Media:
Don Braakman |
(847) 937-0080 |
Financial:
Tina Ventura |
(847) 935-9390 |
