Transcript of Reducing Inappropriate Arterial Blood Gas Testing in a 58-Bed Quaternary Intensive Care Unit
Dr Oliver Walsh: I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the
land on which we meet today and pay my respects to elders past and present.
Performing unnecessary
tests is a huge problem in medicine. We were doing over 65,000 blood gas tests
in our intensive care unit each year, many of them without a strong indication.
This was costing over
$2 million annually and potentially harming our patients by contributing to
anemia and the need for blood transfusion.
Through staff education
and the implementation of a clinical guideline, we were able to reduce our
testing by about one third.
This 20,000 fewer tests
each year equates to almost $0.8 million dollars saved and 100 litres less of
our patients’ precious blood being taken from them.