Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic progressive autoimmune inflammatory disease with significant morbidity and mortality. The course of the disease can be modified if diagnosis is early and treatment appropriate.

In this study, we aimed to evaluate a new strategy for early identification of RA patients in primary care settings (the ‘diagnostic bottleneck’) based on serological biomarkers and to manage inappropriate rheumatoid factor (RF) laboratory test requests.

A two-arm study was carried out. The first arm corresponded to a retrospective observational descriptive study of patients referred for RF testing from primary care using the current laboratory workflow. The second arm included the following prospective interventions: cancelation of RF requests corresponding to patients with previous negative results for RF over a one-year period; and automatic reflex testing antibodies against cyclic citrullinated proteins (anti-CCP) for patients displaying RF values >30 IU/ml. Outcomes from both arms were then compared.

As double positivity for RF and anti-CCP notably increases the positive likelihood ratio of RA. The intervention enabled a reduction of 2813 tests in 22 months. Moreover, the frequency of unnecessary referrals was reduced from 22% to 8.2%, while that of missed patients decreased slightly (from 21% to 16%), with the number of patients diagnosed per RF request remaining unchanged. In terms of costs, we saved 19.4 RF tests per anti-CCP test added.

We developed a simple and cost-effective strategy for reducing the time to diagnosis of RA that can improve patients’ quality of life. This approach was supported by primary and specialised care.