Role of emergency medicine physicians in US performed in patients in the emergency department: How substantial is their participation?

PURPOSE: To determine the extent to which emergency medicine physicians hav e assumed responsibility for performing and interpreting ultrasonographic ( US) studies in emergency departments (EDs) in the United States. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The national 1997 Medicare Part B database was searc hed by using standard US procedure codes, location codes, and physician spe cialty codes. The authors determined how many US studies were performed in EDs and what percentage of those studies were performed by emergency medici ne physicians, radiologists, or other physicians. RESULTS: During 1997, 234,820 ED US studies within nine major examination c ategories were performed in Medicare patients nationwide. Emergency medicin e physicians performed 1,551 (0.7%) of these studies. When echocardiographi c examinations were excluded, emergency medicine physicians performed 458 ( 0.2%) of the remaining total of 196,158 studies. CONCLUSION: Although emergency medicine physicians have claimed to be activ ely involved in ED US on a broad scale, the data reveal that their involvem ent in 1997 was minimal. This raises doubt as to whether they can properly train their residents to perform US or maintain their own competence at acc eptable levels.