ArticleScientific reports2018
Variation in diagnostic test requests and outcomes: a preliminary metric for OpenPathology.net.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Clinical Utility of Point-of-Care Tests for Influenza in Ambulatory Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2019Pooled it
- Development and international multicenter evaluation of a second-generation immunochromatography test for the serological diagnosis of melioidosis.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Timepoint of aspiration can impact diagnostic of PJI - synovial fluid analyses exhibit a high intraindividual variation in periprosthetic joint infections of the knee.Archives of orthopaedic and trauma surgery · 2025Article
- International practice variation in perioperative laboratory testing in glioblastoma patients-a retrospective cohort study.Acta neurochirurgica · 2022Article
- Variation of synovial fluid leucocyte cell count and polymorphonuclear percentage in patients with aseptic revision total knee arthroplasty.Bone & joint open · 2021Article
- Article
- Use of multiple inflammatory marker tests in primary care: using Clinical Practice Research Datalink to evaluate accuracy.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2019Article
- Added value and cascade effects of inflammatory marker tests in UK primary care: a cohort study from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2019Article
- Practice variation in the use of tests in UK primary care: a retrospective analysis of 16 million tests performed over 3.3 million patient years in 2015/16.BMC medicine · 2018Article
- Temporal trends in use of tests in UK primary care, 2000-15: retrospective analysis of 250 million tests.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Efforts to reduce healthcare costs have led to the development of metrics to identify unwarranted variation in care. Previous work assessing diagnostic tests is limited, despite their substantial contribution to expenditure. We explored C-reactive Protein (CRP) and Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) tests ordered across Oxfordshire NHS General Practices, and the proportion of tests that yielded an abnormal result, and identified practices that had a proportion of abnormal CRP and ESR results 3 standard deviations below the mean. We estimated the adjusted average proportion of abnormal CRP and ESR tests that yielded abnormal results from each practice, after adjusting for differences in practice populations. These proportions were plotted against the total CRP and ESR requests per practice. We constructed funnel plots to identify practices 3 standard deviations below the mean proportion of abnormal CRP and ESR tests. We analysed 143,745 CRP and 30,758 ESR requests from 69 practices. Twelve (17%) and 7 (10%) practices were more than 3 standard deviations below the mean for CRP and ESR testing respectively. Two practices (3%) were below the 99.8% limit for both CRP and ESR ordering. Variation in the proportion of tests with an abnormal result shows promise for auditing variation in care.
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