Premium
Remote real‐time supervision via tele‐ultrasound in focused cardiac ultrasound: A single‐blinded cluster randomized controlled trial
Author(s) -
Jensen Stig H.,
Weile Jesper,
Aagaard Rasmus,
Hansen Kåre M.,
Jensen Troels B.,
Petersen Morten C.,
Jensen Jacob J.,
Petersen Poul,
Kirkegaard Hans
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
acta anaesthesiologica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1399-6576
pISSN - 0001-5172
DOI - 10.1111/aas.13276
Subject(s) - medicine , competence (human resources) , ultrasound , randomized controlled trial , grading (engineering) , medical physics , radiology , physical therapy , surgery , psychology , social psychology , civil engineering , engineering
Background Supervision via tele‐ultrasound presents a remedy for lacking on‐site supervision in focused cardiac ultrasound, but knowledge of its impact is largely absent. We aimed to investigate tele‐supervised physicians’ cine‐loop quality compared to that of non‐supervised physicians and compared to that of experts. Methods We conducted a single‐blinded cluster randomized controlled trial in an emergency department in western Denmark. Physicians with basic ultrasound competence scanned admitted patients twice. The first scan was non‐supervised, and the second was non‐supervised (control) or tele‐supervised (intervention). Finally, experts in focused cardiac ultrasound scanned the same patient. Two blinded observers graded cine‐loops recorded from all scans on a 1–5 scale. The outcome was the mean summarized scan gradings compared with a linear mixed‐effects model. Results In each group, 10 physicians scanned 44 patients. From the mean summarized gradings, on a scale from 4 to 20, the second non‐supervised scan grading was 10.9 (95% CI 10.2‐11.7), whereas the tele‐supervised grading was 12.6 (95% CI: 11.8‐13.3). From the first to the second scan, tele‐supervised physicians moved 9% (1.09; 95% CI: 1.00‐1.19; P = 0.041) closer to the experts’ quality than the non‐supervised physicians. Conclusion Tele‐supervised physicians performed scans of better quality than non‐supervised physicians. The present study supports the use of tele‐supervision for physicians with basic focused ultrasound competence in a setting where on‐site supervision is unavailable.