Quality Control in Echocardiography Reporting (Part B) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Quality in Echocardiography: Does It Make a Difference?
Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 2013
The value of echocardiography for diagnosis, therapy, risk stratification, clinical investigation, and basic research is well established. However, as we enter a period of increased scrutiny on resource utilization, the challenge now is to understand how best to allocate resources for cardiac imaging and when to perform echocardiography. Thus, attention has turned to the delivery of ''quality'' care. Quality in cardiovascular imaging has been the subject of summits and ''think tanks'' designed to define components of quality. The American Society of Echocardiography has championed efforts to delineate the multiple facets of quality echocardiography laboratory operations. 3 Numerous factors constitute quality in echocardiography, including the laboratory structure and the imaging process. The laboratory structure includes the physical space and equipment, as well as the personnel (sonographers and physicians). The imaging process can be further separated into five main areas that may influence patient outcomes: patient selection, image acquisition, image interpretation, results communication, and the incorporation of results into care. Most agree that measuring and improving the quality of echocardiography labs is important as we aim to provide the best service possible. But how we should measure quality, and whether quality service makes a difference for outcomes in patients, are important and largely unanswered questions. There are many approaches to measuring quality in health care. For example, the patient experience can be examined to determine if patients are satisfied with the care they receive. Alternatively, processof-care measures can be evaluated to determine if providers are following practice guidelines that have been identified as recommended or appropriate care. Furthermore, one can examine risk-adjusted outcomes to determine how patients are faring. Even outcomes such as reduced downstream testing, improved correct diagnosis rate, and improved health status can be quantified and compared.
Report on a national echocardiography quality-control exercise
European journal of echocardiography : the journal of the Working Group on Echocardiography of the European Society of Cardiology, 2009
To assess the feasibility of conducting a large-scale quality-control exercise on the echocardiographic grading of mitral regurgitation (MR). One hundred and fifty-two practising cardiologist and sonographer echocardiographers attended a dedicated session within a national meeting and were asked to review echocardiographic images of five case studies and evaluate the severity of MR using a six-point scale. The group's overall evaluation was analysed together with the variation in grading of severity. The proportion of gradings of MR more than one grade either side of the mode was <10% in all but one case, and <10% were inaccurately evaluated as inside categories of severe when the modal grading was outside and vice versa. However in a case where a single grading difference had important clinical implications, substantial variability was seen. Conducting a large-scale quality-control exercise in the assessment of mitral regurgitation is feasible. Overall results suggesting ...
2000
The main mission statement of the European Association of Echocardiography (EAE) is 'to promote excellence in clinical diagnosis, research, technical development, and education in cardiovascular ultrasound in Europe'. As competence and quality control issues are increasingly recognized by patients, physicians, and payers, the EAE has established recommendations for training, competence, and quality improvement in echocardiography. The purpose of this document is to provide the requirements for training and competence in echocardiography, to outline the principles of quality measurement, and to recommend a set of measures for improvement, with the ultimate goal of raising the standards of echocardiographic practice in Europe.
European heart journal cardiovascular Imaging, 2014
There are minimal data on methods to measure and improve quality in image interpretation when reporting cardiovascular imaging studies. We sought to identify the feasibility and clinical utility of a nationally implemented quality assurance (QA) process. A web-based platform was developed to administer a national QA module to 27 echocardiography departments within the UK. Three QA modules were delivered from 2011. The proportion of units using the QA module increased from 14 (52.2%) in the first module to 22 (81.5%) in the third module. There was no significant change in the proportion of correct answers between the first module (88.9%) and the third module (82.8%), P = 0.3. The number of echocardiographers with at least one incorrect answer increased from 16 (21.6%) in the first module to 54 (34%) in the third module, P = 0.03. Overall, in valvular heart disease cases there were 36 (10.6%) incorrect responses where qualitative assessment of the severity of valve dysfunction was tes...
2007
Aims: The European Association of Echocardiography (EAE) launched its Accreditation scheme in echocardiography in December 2003. Currently there are accreditations in Adult Transthoracic Echocardiography and Transesophageal Echocardiography and an Accreditation in Echocardiography for Congenital Disease will be launched in December 2006. Methods and results: Over the past 3 years 350 applicants have undertaken the written exams and 157 applicants have completed the process and achieved accreditation.
European heart journal cardiovascular Imaging, 2014
Standards for echocardiographic laboratories were proposed by the European Association of Echocardiography (now the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging) 7 years ago in order to raise standards of practice and improve the quality of care. Criteria and requirements were published at that time for transthoracic, transoesophageal, and stress echocardiography. This paper reassesses and updates the quality standards to take account of experience and the technical developments of modern echocardiographic practice. It also discusses quality control, the incentives for laboratories to apply for accreditation, the reaccreditation criteria, and the current status and future prospects of the laboratory accreditation process.
Appropriate Use Criteria for Echocardiography: New Applications for a New Era of Utilization
Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 2012
Introduction Appropriate use criteria (AUC) for echocardiography based on clinical scenarios were previously published by an American Task Force. We determined whether members of the Dutch Working Group on Echocardiography (WGE) would rate these scenarios in a similar way. Methods All 32 members of the WGE were invited to judge clinical scenarios independently using a blanked version of the previously published American version of AUC for echocardiography. During a face-to-face meeting, consensus about the final rating was reached by open discussion for each indication. For reasons of simplicity, the scores were reduced from a 9-point scale to a 3-point scale (indicating an appropriate, uncertain or inappropriate echo indication, respectively). Results Nine cardiologist members of the WGE reported their judgment on the echo cases (n = 153). Seventy-one indications were rated as appropriate, 35 were rated as uncertain, and 47 were rated as inappropriate. In 5% of the Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (
Cardiovascular Ultrasound, 2011
When applying echo-Doppler imaging for either clinical or research purposes it is very important to select the most adequate modality/technology and choose the most reliable and reproducible measurements. Quality control is a mainstay to reduce variability among institutions and operators and must be obtained by using appropriate procedures for data acquisition, storage and interpretation of echo-Doppler data. This goal can be achieved by employing an echo core laboratory (ECL), with the responsibility for standardizing image acquisition processes (performed at the peripheral echo-labs) and analysis (by monitoring and optimizing the internal intra-and interreader variability of measurements). Accordingly, the Working Group of Echocardiography of the Italian Society of Cardiology decided to design standardized procedures for imaging acquisition in peripheral laboratories and reading procedures and to propose a methodological approach to assess the reproducibility of echo-Doppler parameters of cardiac structure and function by using both standard and advanced technologies. A number of cardiologists experienced in cardiac ultrasound was involved to set up an ECL available for future studies involving complex imaging or including echo-Doppler measures as primary or secondary efficacy or safety end-points. The present manuscript describes the methodology of the procedures (imaging acquisition and measurement reading) and provides the documentation of the work done so far to test the reproducibility of the different echo-Doppler modalities (standard and advanced). These procedures can be suggested for utilization also in non referall echocardiographic laboratories as an "inside" quality check, with the aim at optimizing clinical consistency of echo-Doppler data.