The impact of different methods of COVID-19 sample analysis upon patient stay duration between arrival at the emergency department and hospital admission

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Sars-Cov2 is a respiratory disease causing virus that originated in Wuhan, China with the officials in the country first reporting it in December 2019. It results in the condition Covid-19, with the main symptoms associated with the virus being a high temperature, a continuous cough and a loss or change of taste and smell.AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: An assessment of service provision was conducted to see how the involvement of different analysers with its different systems, impacted upon the duration that patients spent on Paediatric Assessment Unit (PAU); an intermediary unit linking the Emergency Department to further hospital wards. The preferred screening for the virus by Public Health England (PHE) involves molecular diagnosis by real-time PCR. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty samples were collected between March and July, and the patient duration spent on PAU was seen to decrease as the months progressed. To the best of our knowledge, this is a novel study which has not yet taken place before.RESULTS: As the months progressed, the average time patients spent on PAU from March to July was shown to have reduced.CONCLUSION: The decrease in duration mirrored the change in service provision; namely the implementation of a random-access analyser, allowing for enhanced patient movement within the hospital.