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Clinician-Performed Bedside Ultrasound In Improving Diagnostic Accuracy In Patients Presenting To The Ed With Acute Dyspnea., Dimitrios Papanagnou, Michael Secko, John Gullett, Michael Stone, Shahriar Zehtabchi

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

INTRODUCTION: Diagnosing acute dyspnea is a critical action performed by emergency physicians (EP). It has been shown that ultrasound (US) can be incorporated into the work-up of the dyspneic patient; but there is little data demonstrating its effect on decision-making. We sought to examine the impact of a bedside, clinician-performed cardiopulmonary US protocol on the clinical impression of EPs evaluating dyspneic patients, and to measure the change in physician confidence with the leading diagnosis before and after US.

METHODS: We conducted a prospective observational study of EPs treating adult patients with undifferentiated dyspnea in an urban academic center, excluding those …