Influence of Color Priming on Comfort with Emergency Department Discharge for Low HEART Score Patients

Each survey showed the percentage of major adverse cardiac events expected to occur in patients with low-risk chest pain over the next six weeks and was presented as a > 98% chance of no major adverse cardiac outcome over that time period. [...]in this small pilot study of emergency department patients with low HEART scores, there was no association between written color priming for description of risk and patient comfort with discharge home. Lutfey, et al. demonstrated that primary care physicians primed through vignettes to consider coronary heart disease for standardized patients were significantly more likely to order cardiac tests and prescribe cardiac medications than similar physicians who did not review the vignettes [9].