• J Alcaraz-Martínez, J M Aranaz-Andrés, A Cantero-Sandoval, P Piñera-Salmerón, J Mas-Luzón, J A Serrano-Martínez, E González Garro, and grupo de trabajo ERIDA.
• Unidad de Calidad y Servicio de Urgencias, Hospital Universitario J.M. Morales Meseguer, Murcia, España. Electronic address: julian.alcaraz2@carm.es.
• J Healthc Qual Res. 2018 Mar 1; 33 (2): 75-81.

ObjectiveTo analyse the use of complementary tests and their relationship with safety incidents in hospital emergency departments.MethodologyAn analysis was performed on 935 patients seen in the 9 hospital emergency departments. The source of data used for the detection of incidents were: emergency department clinical record and reports, together with face-to-face observation in the department, plus a telephone survey of the patient or family member at one week after the care. Statistical tests used: The Student t test for quantitative variables, Chi squared test for qualitative variables, and the ANOVA test.ResultsA peripheral venous catheter was used in 397 patients (42.4% (95% CI; 39.3-45.5%)), with a variability with significant differences between hospitals (P<.01), with a range of use from 37% to 81.8%. It was also observed that in 23.4% (95% CI; 19.2-27.6%) of the cases, the catheter was not used after the first blood draw. Radiological tests were requested for 351 patients, 37.7% (95% CI; 34.6-40.8%), also with significant differences between hospitals (P<.01), ranging from 24.6 to 65, 1%. Incidents were detected in 95 (10.2%) patients (95% CI; 8.3-12.1%) in the all the study centres. A higher proportion of safety incidents have been observed in patients where peripheral venous catheter has been used (12.8%) than in those in whom they had not been used (8.5%) (P=.03), as well as in patients on whom an x-ray was requested (12.8%) compared to those who did not (8.64%) (P=.04). A longer stay was also observed in cases with an incident (mean 248.9minutes) than in those where there were none (mean 164.1minutes) (P<.001). No statistically significant differences were found in the other parameters studied.ConclusionA relationship was observed between the use of a peripheral venous catheter (many of them without use) and radiological tests and the occurrence of safety incidents in the Emergency Departments.Copyright © 2018 SECA. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

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