Patient satisfaction and diagnostic accuracy with ultrasound by emergency physicians

In recent years, there has been considerable interest and controversy conce rning the performance of ultrasound by emergency physicians (ED Sono), but patient satisfaction with ED Sane has not been well studied. The primary pu rpose of this investigation was to assess the level of patient satisfaction with ED Sono and to compare satisfaction with ED Sono with ultrasound by t he Medical Imaging Department (MI Sono). A secondary objective was to asses s the accuracy of ED Sono at our facility. During a 5-month period, which i ncluded the startup phase of a program for ED Sono, emergency physicians pr ospectively identified patients who were candidates for ultrasound as a par t of their workup. Patients were contacted by telephone after their ED visi t and asked to rate satisfaction on a 0 to 10 scale for various aspects of their care, including the ultrasound if one was done. The accuracy of ED So no was determined by comparing ED ultrasound interpretations with surgical pathology, repeat imaging studies, or clinical follow-up. Two hundred forty patients were entered into the study, and 186 (78%) responded to the satis faction survey. Satisfaction ratings were similarly high for ED Sono (mean, 8.9; 95% CI, 8.6 to 9.2) and for MI Sono (mean, 8.8; 95% CI, 8.2 to 9.4). Eighteen percent of ultrasounds performed by emergency physicians were inde terminate. Excluding indeterminate scans and scans for which confirmation w as not possible, the accuracy of ED Sono was 99.1% (95% CI, 95.1% to >99.9% ). We conclude that during the startup phase of our ED Sono program, patien t satisfaction was high, and the error rate was very low.(Am J Emerg Med 19 99;17:642-646. Copyright (C) 1999 by W.B. Saunders Company).