Effect of Implementation of Standard Clinical Practice Guideline on Management of Gastrointestinal Bleeding Patients in Emergency Department; a Cross-Sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: A clinical practice guideline (CPG) is developed with the aim of improving the quality of health care and reducing unnecessary interventions, hospitalization time, and related costs. OBJECTIVE: This study attempted to design a standard protocol for gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) patients. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted during 2013 and 2014 in an educational medical center in Isfahan, Iran. A checklist containing questions about waiting time for the services, hospitalization time, and costs was completed for the GIB patients. After this primary data gathering, a CPG was designed, codified, underwent several revisions, and finally implemented. Thereafter, the checklist was completed by GIB patients and compared with the previous ones. RESULTS: Fifty patients in each of the two phases were included. The mean age and sex of the studied patients were not different. The time from emergency departments (ED) arrival until the first visit (14 ± 9.8 Vs. 19.4 ± 13.4 minutes; p = 0.03), hospitalization (73.7 ± 49.2 Vs. 116.2 ± 7.2 hours; p=0.003) and costs (1.3 ± 0.81 Vs. 3.68 ± 3.51 million rials; p < 0.001) were significantly reduced following the CPG implementation. The time from admission until conducting endoscopy was not different in the two study periods (16.5 ± 7.8 Vs. 23.9 ± 24.5 hours, p = 0.89). CONCLUSION: The implementation of the CPG for the management of GIB patients in the ED resulted in a reduction in the waiting time for the services and, further, reduction of hospitalization time and related costs.