Clinical question: Does prompting hospitalists during interdisciplinary rounds to discontinue lab orders on patients nearing discharge result in a decrease in lab testing?
Background: The Society of Hospital Medicine, as part of the Choosing Wisely campaign, has recommended against “repetitive complete blood count and chemistry testing in the face of clinical and lab stability.” Repeated phlebotomy has been shown to increase iatrogenic anemia and patient discomfort. While past interventions have been effective in decreasing lab testing, this study focused on identifying and intervening on patients who were clinically stable and nearing discharge.
Study design: Prospective, observational study.
Setting: Tertiary care teaching hospital in New York.
Dr. Bryan Huang
Synopsis: As part of structured, bedside, interdisciplinary rounds, over the course of a year, this study incorporated an inquiry to identify patients who were likely to be discharged in the next 24-48 hours; the unit medical director or nurse manager then prompted staff to discontinue labs for these patients when appropriate. This was supplemented by education of clinicians and regular review of lab utilization data with hospitalists.
The percentage of patients with labs ordered in the 24 hours prior to discharge decreased from 50.1% in the preintervention period to 34.5% in the postintervention period (P = .004). The number of labs ordered per patient-day dropped from 1.96 to 1.83 (P = .01).
Bottom line: An intervention with prompting during structured interdisciplinary rounds decreased the frequency of labs ordered for patients nearing hospital discharge.
Citation: Tsega S et al. Bedside assessment of the necessity of daily lab testing for patients nearing discharge. J Hosp Med. 2018 Jan 1;13(1):38-40.
Dr. Huang is associate chief of the division of hospital medicine at UC San Diego Health and an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
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