Dataset Information

Effectiveness and safety of chest pain assessment to prevent emergency admissions: ESCAPE cluster randomised trial.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To determine whether introducing chest pain unit care reduces emergency admissions without increasing reattendances and admissions over the next 30 days.

Design

Cluster randomised before and after intervention trial.

Setting

14 diverse acute hospitals in the United Kingdom.

Participants

Patients attending the emergency department with acute chest pain during the year before and the year after the intervention started.

Intervention

Establishment of chest pain unit care compared with continuation of routine care.

Main outcome measures

Proportion of chest pain attendances resulting in admission; reattendances and admissions over the next 30 days; daily emergency medical admissions (all causes); and proportion of emergency department attendances with chest pain.

Results

The introduction of chest pain unit care was associated with weak evidence of an increase in emergency department attendances with chest pain (16% v 3.5%; P=0.08); no change in the proportion of chest pain attendances resulting in admission (odds ratio 0.998, 95% confidence interval 0.940 to 1.059; P=0.945); small increases in the proportion reattending (odds ratio 1.10, 1.00 to 1.21; P=0.036) or being admitted (1.30, 0.97 to 1.74; P=0.083) over the next 30 days; and evidence of increased daily medical admissions (1.7 per day, 95% confidence interval 0.8 to 2.5; P<0.001). However, this last finding was highly sensitive to changes in the method used to handle missing data.

Conclusion

The introduction of chest pain unit care did not reduce the proportion of patients with chest pain admitted and may have been associated with increased emergency department attendances with chest pain.

Trial registration

Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN55318418.

SUBMITTER: Goodacre S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1995498 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Effectiveness and safety of chest pain assessment to prevent emergency admissions: ESCAPE cluster randomised trial.

Goodacre Steve S Cross Elizabeth E Lewis Cath C Nicholl Jon J Capewell Simon S

BMJ (Clinical research ed.) 20070918 7621

<h4>Objective</h4>To determine whether introducing chest pain unit care reduces emergency admissions without increasing reattendances and admissions over the next 30 days.<h4>Design</h4>Cluster randomised before and after intervention trial.<h4>Setting</h4>14 diverse acute hospitals in the United Kingdom.<h4>Participants</h4>Patients attending the emergency department with acute chest pain during the year before and the year after the intervention started.<h4>Intervention</h4>Establishment of ch ...[more]

PMID: 17878265

Similar Datasets

Project description:ObjectiveTo examine the effect of optimising drug treatment on drug related hospital admissions in older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy admitted to hospital.DesignCluster randomised controlled trial.Setting110 clusters of inpatient wards within university based hospitals in four European countries (Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, and Republic of Ireland) defined by attending hospital doctors.Participants2008 older adults (≥70 years) with multimorbidity (≥3 chronic conditions) and polypharmacy (≥5 drugs used long term).InterventionClinical staff clusters were randomised to usual care or a structured pharmacotherapy optimisation intervention performed at the individual level jointly by a doctor and a pharmacist, with the support of a clinical decision software system deploying the screening tool of older person's prescriptions and screening tool to alert to the right treatment (STOPP/START) criteria to identify potentially inappropriate prescribing.Main outcome measurePrimary outcome was first drug related hospital admission within 12 months.Results2008 older adults (median nine drugs) were randomised and enrolled in 54 intervention clusters (963 participants) and 56 control clusters (1045 participants) receiving usual care. In the intervention arm, 86.1% of participants (n=789) had inappropriate prescribing, with a mean of 2.75 (SD 2.24) STOPP/START recommendations for each participant. 62.2% (n=491) had ≥1 recommendation successfully implemented at two months, predominantly discontinuation of potentially inappropriate drugs. In the intervention group, 211 participants (21.9%) experienced a first drug related hospital admission compared with 234 (22.4%) in the control group. In the intention-to-treat analysis censored for death as competing event (n=375, 18.7%), the hazard ratio for first drug related hospital admission was 0.95 (95% confidence interval 0.77 to 1.17). In the per protocol analysis, the hazard ratio for a drug related hospital admission was 0.91 (0.69 to 1.19). The hazard ratio for first fall was 0.96 (0.79 to 1.15; 237 v 263 first falls) and for death was 0.90 (0.71 to 1.13; 172 v 203 deaths).ConclusionsInappropriate prescribing was common in older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy admitted to hospital and was reduced through an intervention to optimise pharmacotherapy, but without effect on drug related hospital admissions. Additional efforts are needed to identify pharmacotherapy optimisation interventions that reduce inappropriate prescribing and improve patient outcomes.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT02986425.

Project description:IntroductionMultimorbidity and polypharmacy are important risk factors for drug-related hospital admissions (DRAs). DRAs are often linked to prescribing problems (overprescribing and underprescribing), as well as non-adherence with drug regimens for different reasons. In this trial, we aim to assess whether a structured medication review compared with standard care can reduce DRAs in multimorbid older patients with polypharmacy.Methods and analysisOPtimising thERapy to prevent Avoidable hospital admissions in Multimorbid older people is a European multicentre, cluster randomised, controlled trial. Hospitalised patients ≥70 years with ≥3 chronic medical conditions and concurrent use of ≥5 chronic medications are included in the four participating study centres of Bern (Switzerland), Utrecht (The Netherlands), Brussels (Belgium) and Cork (Ireland). Patients treated by the same prescribing physician constitute a cluster, and clusters are randomised 1:1 to either standard care or Systematic Tool to Reduce Inappropriate Prescribing (STRIP) intervention with the help of a clinical decision support system, the STRIP Assistant. STRIP is a structured method performing customised medication reviews, based on Screening Tool of Older People's Prescriptions/Screening Tool to Alert to Right Treatment criteria to detect potentially inappropriate prescribing. The primary endpoint is any DRA where the main reason or a contributory reason for the patient's admission is caused by overtreatment or undertreatment, and/or inappropriate treatment. Secondary endpoints include number of any hospitalisations, all-cause mortality, number of falls, quality of life, degree of polypharmacy, activities of daily living, patient's drug compliance, the number of significant drug-drug interactions, drug overuse and underuse and potentially inappropriate medication.Ethics and disseminationThe local Ethics Committees in Switzerland, Ireland, The Netherlands and Belgium approved this trial protocol. We will publish the results of this trial in a peer-reviewed journal.Main fundingEuropean Union's Horizon 2020 programme.Trial registration numberNCT02986425 , SNCTP000002183 , NTR6012, U1111-1181-9400.

Project description:Patients with cirrhosis have high admission and readmission rates, and it is estimated that a quarter are potentially preventable. Little data are available regarding nonmedical factors impacting triage decisions in this patient population. This study sought to explore such factors as well as to determine provider perspectives on low-acuity clinical presentations to the emergency department, including ascites and hepatic encephalopathy. A survey was distributed in four liver transplant centers to both emergency medicine and hepatology providers, who included attending physicians, house staff, and advanced practitioners; 196 surveys were returned (estimated response rate 50.6%). Emergency medicine providers identified several influential nonmedical factors impacting inpatient triage decisions, including input from a hepatologist (77.7%), inadequate patient access to outpatient specialty care (68.6%), and patient need for diagnostic testing for a procedure (65.6%). When given patient-based scenarios of low-acuity cases, such as ascites requiring paracentesis, only 7.0% believed patients should be hospitalized while 48.9% said these patients would be hospitalized at their institution (P?<?0.0001). For mild hepatic encephalopathy, the comparable numbers were 19.5% and 55.2%, respectively (P?<?0.001). Several perceived barriers were cited for this discrepancy, including limited resources both in the outpatient setting and emergency department. Most providers believed that an emergency department observation unit protocol would influence triage toward an emergency department observation unit visit instead of inpatient admission for both ascites requiring large volume paracentesis (83.2%) and mild hepatic encephalopathy (79.4%). Conclusion: Many nonmedical factors that influence inpatient triage for patients with cirrhosis could be targeted for quality improvement initiatives. In some scenarios, providers are limited by resource availability, which results in triage to an inpatient admission even when they believe this is not the most appropriate disposition. (Hepatology Communications 2018;2:237-244).

Dataset Information

Effectiveness and safety of chest pain assessment to prevent emergency admissions: ESCAPE cluster randomised trial.

Objective

Design

Setting

Participants

Intervention

Main outcome measures

Results

Conclusion

Trial registration

Publications

Effectiveness and safety of chest pain assessment to prevent emergency admissions: ESCAPE cluster randomised trial.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure