The investigation of chest pain: audit and intervention.

Objective: To examine the patterns of tests requested for patients admitted with chest pain, and to monitor the effects on those patterns of issuing a set of guidelines formulated by an expert panel.

Setting: Tertiary referral hospital (teaching).

Design: A retrospective audit of the patterns of testing of patients with chest pain compared with testing recommended by an expert panel, followed by comparison with patterns of testing after guidelines were issued.