Critical pathways in cardiology
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The ability to risk stratify patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with potential acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is critical. The thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) risk score can risk stratify ED patients with potential ACS but cannot identify patients safe for ED discharge. The symptom-based HEART score identifies very low-risk patients. Our hypothesis was that patients with a TIMI score of 0 or 1 may be stratified further with the HEART score to identify a group of patients at less than 1% risk of 30-day cardiovascular events. ⋯ At all levels of TIMI score, the HEART score was able to further substratify patients with respect to 30-day risk. A HEART score of 0 in a patient with a TIMI of 0 identified a group of patients at less than 1% risk for 30-day adverse events.