1. Routine blood tests are associated with short term mortality and can improve emergency department triage: a cohort study of >12,000 patients
- Author
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Michael Kristensen, Anne Kristine Servais Iversen, Thomas Alexander Gerds, Rebecca Østervig, Jakob Danker Linnet, Charlotte Barfod, Kai Henrik Wiborg Lange, György Sölétormos, Jakob Lundager Forberg, Jesper Eugen-Olsen, Lars Simon Rasmussen, Morten Schou, Lars Køber, and Kasper Iversen
- Subjects
Triage ,Biomarkers ,Risk stratification ,Emergency medicine ,Acute patients ,Medical emergencies. Critical care. Intensive care. First aid ,RC86-88.9 - Abstract
Abstract Background Prioritization of acutely ill patients in the Emergency Department remains a challenge. We aimed to evaluate whether routine blood tests can predict mortality in unselected patients in an emergency department and to compare risk prediction with a formalized triage algorithm. Methods A prospective observational cohort study of 12,661 consecutive admissions to the Emergency Department of Nordsjælland University Hospital during two separate periods in 2010 (primary cohort, n = 6279) and 2013 (validation cohort, n = 6383). Patients were triaged in five categories by a formalized triage algorithm. All patients with a full routine biochemical screening (albumin, creatinine, c-reactive protein, haemoglobin, lactate dehydrogenase, leukocyte count, potassium, and sodium) taken at triage were included. Information about vital status was collected from the Danish Central Office of Civil registration. Multiple logistic regressions were used to predict 30-day mortality. Validation was performed by applying the regression models on the 2013 validation cohort. Results Thirty-day mortality was 5.3%. The routine blood tests had a significantly stronger discriminative value on 30-day mortality compared to the formalized triage (AUC 88.1 [85.7;90.5] vs. 63.4 [59.1;67.5], p
- Published
- 2017
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