In many cases, emergency department (ED) care leads to investigations for which there are not final results at patient disposition. The follow-up for these test results pending at discharge, most commonly final diagnostic imaging reports and microbiology cultures, is a significant safety concern for patients and a medicolegal risk for ED practitioners. Our objective is to perform a systematic review of the literature and report on the structure and outcomes of existing ED quality assurance processes to address these test results pending at discharge.

We searched for studies that reported processes to ensure follow-up of test results pending at discharge for patients discharged from ED settings in 6 relevant databases, from inception to June 11, 2019. We appraised the quality of each study and extracted characteristics of the quality assurance process being discussed, as well as its influence and outcomes, cost, and feasibility.

We identified 17,862 studies, and 17 met our criteria for inclusion. Four major processes were identified to improve the follow-up of test results pending at discharge: only nurses or clerks involved, physician-driven process, direct patient contact, and pharmacist-led process. The 5 recommendations generated by our literature review included dedicating staff to the quality assurance process, protecting their quality assurance time from clinical duties, ensuring electronic medical record integration, encouraging collaboration among health care disciplines, and engaging patients.

A variety of quality assurance processes have been described to follow up on ED test results pending at discharge, and we provided recommendations to improve patient care. All ED leaders should consider implementing these according to their local context.