Impact of a bedside procedure service on general medicine inpatients: A firm-based trial.

Background: Procedure services may improve the training of bedside procedures. However, little is known about how procedure services may affect the demand for and success of procedures performed on general medicine inpatients.

Objective: Determine whether a procedure service affects the number and success of 4 bedside procedures (paracentesis, thoracentesis, lumbar puncture, and central venous catheterization) attempted on general medicine inpatients.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Large public teaching hospital.

Patients: Nineteen hundred and forty-one consecutive admissions to the general medicine service.

Intervention: A bedside procedure service was offered to physicians from 1 of 3 firms for 4 weeks. This service then crossed over to physicians from the other 2 firms for another 4 weeks.

Measurements: Data on all procedure attempts were collected daily from physicians. We examined whether the number of attempts and the proportion of successful attempts differed based on whether firms were offered the beside procedure service.

Results: The number of procedure attempts was 48% higher in firms offered the service (90 versus 61 per 1000 admissions; RR 1.48, 95% CI 1.06-2.10; P = .030). More than 85% of the observed increase was a result of procedures with therapeutic indications. There were no differences between firms in the proportions of successful attempts or major complications.

Conclusions: The availability of a procedure service may increase the overall demand for bedside procedures. Further studies should refine the indications for and anticipated benefits from these commonly performed invasive procedures.