Laboratory alerts to guide early intensive care team review in surgical patients: A feasibility, safety, and efficacy pilot randomized controlled trial

Aim: Common blood tests can help identify patients at risk of death, unplanned intensive care unit (ICU) admission, or rapid response team (RRT) call. We aimed to test whether early ICU-team review triggered by such laboratory tests (lab alert) is feasible, safe, and can alter physiological variables, clinical management, and clinical outcomes. Methods: In prospective pilot randomized controlled trial in surgical wards of a tertiary hospital, we studied patients admitted for >24 h. We applied a previously validated risk assessment tool to each set of common laboratory tests to identify patients at risk and generate a “lab-alert”. We randomly allocated such lab-alert patients to receive early ICU-team review (intervention) or usual care (control). Results: We studied 205 patients (males 54.1%; average age 79 years; 103 randomized to intervention and 102 to usual care). Intervention patients were more likely to trigger RRT activation during their first lab-alert (10.7 vs. 2.0%; P < 0.001) but less likely to receive an allied health referral (18.0% vs. 24.5%; p = 0.007). They were less likely to trigger RRT activation in the 24-h before subsequent alerts (18.4 vs. 22.4%; p = 0.008) and less likely to generate further alerts (204 vs. 320; p < 0.001), but more likely to receive a not for resuscitation or endotracheal intubation status in the 24-h before subsequent alerts (26.6 vs. 17.3%; p = 0.05). Mortality at 24 h was 1.9% for the intervention group vs. 2.9% in the control group (p = 0.63). Finally, overall mortality was 19.4% for intervention patients vs. 23.5% for control patients (p = 0.50). Conclusion: Among surgical patients, lab alerts identify patients with a high mortality. Lab alert-triggered interventions are associated with more first alert-associated RRT activations; more changes in resuscitation status toward a more conservative approach; fewer subsequent alert-associated RRT activations; fewer subsequent alerts, and decreased allied health interventions (ANZCTRN12615000146594).