A simple educational programme substantially reduces unnecessary use of coagulation screening testing in an acute medical department.

A review suggested that coagulation screening tests (CST) were frequently performed unnecessarily in our Acute Medical Department. We reviewed the records of all patients for whom CST was ordered in one week (n141) before designing and delivering an e-mail, poster and presentation based educational programme to clinicians. We repeated the review of records three weeks after this programme (n79). The proportion of patients in whom CST was ordered was significantly lower (22% versus 32%, p0.0014) and proportion of CSTs sent with a valid indication was significantly higher (87% versus 49%, p 0.0001) in the second review period. This study demonstrates that a simple educational programme substantially reduces unnecessary use of CST in an acute medical department with significant potential efficiency savings.