Clinical characteristics and care times in a chest pain unit of the emergency department of an Argentine center

Abstract

Objective. To report the frequency of chest pain, describe clinical characteristics, and care times. Materials and methods. Retrospective descriptive study that included consultations in the Chest Pain Unit in 2021 in the emergency department of a private hospital in Argentina. Results. There were 1469 admissions for chest pain, yielding a frequency of 1.09% (95% confidence interval[CI]: 1.04-1.15). They were 52% men, mean age 62 years (standard deviation [SD] ± 15); 48% had hypertension and 32% dyslipidemia. The median time to initial ECG was 4.3 min (interquartile range [IQR]: 2.5-7.5); and 26 min (IQR: 14-46) to medical evaluation. A total of 206 (14%) were hospitalized with a median of 3 days, 76% were admitted to a closed unit, 9% required non-invasive ventilation/mechanical ventilation and in-hospital mortality was 2.9%. Those hospitalized presented shorter delay time to medical attention (p<0.01), and greater performance of complementary studies (p<0.01), with no differences in time to ECG (p=0.22). Conclusions. Care times were within the stipulated standards, being an important indicator of quality. Nursing was crucial, taking care of the correct triage, ECG on admission, and guaranteeing care until medical evaluation.