Impact of a bleeding care pathway in the management of acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding.
Article
in English
| IMSEAR
| ID: sea-141264
ABSTRACT
Objectives Upper gastrointestinal (UGI) bleeding carries high morbidity and mortality. The use of a bleeding care pathway (BCP) may improve outcomes, but the results are inconsistent in various studies. Methods A BCP for patients with UGI bleed with admission in a bleeding care unit (BCU) has been in use at our hospital since 2005. Prior to this, a high dependency unit was used for management of all emergencies including UGI bleeding. We compared the length of stay in the bleeding care/high dependency unit, total hospital stay, time to UGI endoscopy after admission, and survival between pre-2005 and post-2005 patients. Results Five hundred and fifty-one patients were admitted with acute UGI bleed in the last 5 years; 121 belonged to pre- BCP (2004) period and 430 after implementation of the pathway (2005–2008). The mean (SD) time to UGI endoscopy improved from 21.3 (7.4) hours in the pre-BCU era to 9.4 (9.9) hours in BCU, p<0.001. BCU stay was shorter from 2.41 (1.4) days pre-BCP to 1.93 (1.32) days post-BCP, (p<0.001). The total hospital stay in pre-BCU (4.0 [2.08] days) as compared to BCU (4.13 [2.62] days; p=0.58) was similar; there was no impact of BCU on survival. Conclusion A BCU implementation showed improvement in time to UGI endoscopy, and did not reduce BCU stay or impact survival.
Full text:
Available
Index:
IMSEAR (South-East Asia)
Type of study:
Practice guideline
Language:
English
Year:
2011
Type:
Article
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