Reducing Point-of-care Blood Gas Testing in the Intensive Care Unit through Diagnostic Stewardship: A Value Improvement Project.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Overutilization of point-of-care (POC) testing may reduce the overall value of care due to high-cost cartridges, need for staff training, and quality assurance requirements.

Methods

The Diagnostic Stewardship group at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center assembled a multidisciplinary team to reduce the use of POC blood gas testing by 20% in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Key drivers of test overutilization included poor knowledge of cost, concern with testing turnaround time, and a lack of a standard definition of when a POC test was appropriate. We calculated weekly the outcome measure of POC blood gas tests per PICU patient-day and a balancing measure of blood gas result turnaround time using data extracted from the electronic medical recor

SUBMITTER: Tchou MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7339248 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature