BACKGROUND: Identifying hospitals that are both early and consistent adopters of high-value care can help shed light on the culture and practices at those institutions that are necessary to promote high-value care nationwide. The use of troponin testing to diagnose acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and not testing for myoglobin or creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), is a high-value recommendation of the Choosing Wisely® campaign.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the variation in cardiac biomarker testing and the effect of the Choosing Wisely® troponin-only testing recommendation for the diagnosis of AMI.
DESIGN: A retrospective, observational study using administrative ordering data from Vizient’s Clinical Database/Resource Manager.
PATIENTS: Hospitalized patients with a principal discharge diagnosis of AMI.
INTERVENTION: The Choosing Wisely® recommendation to order troponin-only testing to diagnose AMI was released during the first quarter of 2015.
RESULTS: In 19 hospitals, troponin-only testing was consistently ordered to diagnose AMI before the Choosing Wisely® recommendation and throughout the study period. In 34 hospitals, both troponin testing and myoglobin/CK-MB testing were ordered to diagnose AMI even after the Choosing Wisely® recommendation. In 26 hospitals with low rates of troponin-only testing before the Choosing Wisely® recommendation, the release of the recommendation was associated with a statistically significant increase in the rate of troponin-only testing to diagnose AMI.
CONCLUSION: In institutions with low rates of troponin-only testing prior to the Choosing Wisely® recommendation, the recommendation was associated with a significant increase in the rate of troponin-only testing.
Read the entire article in the Dec. 2017 issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
Also in JHM this month
Hospital perceptions of Medicare’s Sepsis Quality Reporting Initiative
AUTHORS: Ian J. Barbash, MD, MS; Kimberly J. Rak, PhD; Courtney C. Kuza, MPH; and Jeremy M. Kahn, MD, MS
Health literacy and hospital length of stay: An inpatient cohort study
AUTHORS: Ethan G. Jaffee, MD; Vineet M. Arora, MD, MAPP; Madeleine I. Matthiesen, MD; David O. Meltzer, MD, PhD, MHM; and Valerie G. Press, MD, FAAP, FACP, MPH
How exemplary teaching physicians interact with hospitalized patients
AUTHORS: Sanjay Saint, MD, MPH, FHM; Molly Harrod, PhD; Karen E. Fowler, MPH; and Nathan Houchens, MD, FACP, FHM
A randomized cohort controlled trial to compare intern sign-out training interventions
AUTHORS: Soo-Hoon Lee, PhD; Christopher Terndrup, MD; Phillip H. Phan, PhD; Sandra E. Zaeh, MD; Kwame Atsina, MD; Nicole Minkove, MD; Alexander Billioux, MD; DPhil, Souvik Chatterjee, MD; Idoreyin Montague, MD; Bennett Clark, MD; Andrew Hughes, MD; and Sanjay V. Desai, MD
