Pathogen-specific technologies often have specificity to one or a limited group of pathogens and may require add-on tests in order to exclude specific pathogens such as MRSA before enabling the clinician to narrow empiric antibiotic treatment.
Finally, we estimated the incremental value (additional sensitivity) of the two NAATs as add-on tests after smear microscopy [20] and measured the potential clinical impact on time-to-treatment initiation if a NAAT result were used to prescribe TB treatment, compared to clinical judgment alone [21].
There were 443,411 unique ordering instances, leading to an average of 1.99 add-on tests per instance.
As with previous studies, LFP, BMP, MGPO4, and CARDIAC were in the top tier of ordered add-on tests.
During the time period of retrospective study, 880,359 add-on tests were ordered on 96,244 different patients.
Extended accuracy studies can only be used for add-on tests where the pre-test management plan is clearly determined from the results of the existing test.
Of the 880,359 add-on orders, there were 443,411 unique ordering instances, leading to an average of 1.99 add-on tests per instance.
Four common tests (CBC, DIFF, PT/INR, and PT) accounted for over two-thirds of the hematology and coagulation add-on tests.
Some patients had multiple episodes of add-on test orders at different points in time, leading to an average of 9.15 add-on tests per patient.
The top five most frequent individual add-on tests were magnesium (4.0 %), albumin (3.8 %), alanine aminotransferase (3.8 %), aspartate aminotransferase (3.8 %), and total bilirubin (3.7%%).
Some patients had multiple episodes of add-on test orders at different points in time (e.g., during different days of a multi-day inpatient encounter), leading to an average of 9.15 add-on tests per patient.
