Study Shows One Hospital's Progress in Decreasing Time to Diagnosis for Cardiogenic Shock

A study published in Critical Care Nurse shows that a cardiovascular specialty hospital in Texas “decreased time to diagnosis for patients with cardiogenic shock by more than half.”

Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital – Plano “developed a multidisciplinary shock team as part of its efforts to improve outcomes for patients experiencing cardiogenic shock. The condition is an infrequent complication of ischemic heart disease, and more than 80% of incidents of cardiogenic shock occur after an acute myocardial infarction. Shock teams aim to improve timely recognition of the signs and symptoms, and then facilitate care among specialty physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals.”

The initiative was led by nurses and “significantly improved the time from first signs to diagnosis for patients already admitted and the time from the initial transfer request to acceptance for patients being transferred from a referring hospital.”

The hospital’s shock consortium “developed an algorithm to assess and treat patients with cardiogenic shock. Using the acronym SALUDE, the algorithm guides nurses and other clinicians in identifying the signs of cardiogenic shock and through the various steps of activating the shock team.”

The analysis for the study looked at preintervention data for 25 patients between April and May 2021 and postintervention data for 45 patients admitted in April and May 2022. The mean time to diagnosis “decreased significantly, from nearly 18 hours to 8.15 hours. For patients with cardiogenic shock transferring from a referring hospital, the median time to acceptance fell from 1.55 hours to 0.35 hour.”