ER physicians using smartphones discharge patients more quickly

Seeing physicians on their smartphones could mean being discharged faster. A recent study, published in Annals of Emergency Medicine, examined differences in discharge times for emergency department (ED) patients with chest pain seen by physicians with or without smartphones to deliver laboratory results.

Patients visiting the ED for chest pain are tested for troponin levels, which increase during heart attack. These tests can increase the time before a patient is discharged. The study analyzed 554 patients in the smartphone group and 551 in the control group.

Results showed a significant difference in discharge times between the two populations. The smartphone group had an average discharge decision in 68.5 minutes, while the non-smartphone group waited 94.3 minutes, a difference of 25.8 minutes.

“For patients waiting for lab results, 26 minutes is significant, even if the smartphone process did not shorten overall length of stay significantly," said study author Aikta Verma, MD, MHSc, of the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. "For many patients, waiting for lab results that determine if they stay in the hospital or go home is the hardest part of the ER visit. Physicians who received troponin results on their smartphones made the decision to discharge their patients with chest pain a median of 26 minutes faster than physicians without troponin push-alert notifications. Our study demonstrated reduced time to discharge decision for chest pain patients by pushing troponin results to smartphones. There are many other results that could also be pushed: other critical lab results, radiology reports, vital signs, etc. For now, we recommend the use of the push-alert notification system to improve flow through the emergency department for chest pain patients."