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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Hemodynamic Precision in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit using Targeted Neonatal Echocardiography
Published on: January 27, 2023
Utilisation and clinical efficacy of echocardiography in a regional hospital
Rick McLean1, Sharafat Malek, John Corish
1Department of Medicine, Dubbo Base Hospital, Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia. rmclean@med.usyd.edu.au
Objective:
To determine utilisation and clinical efficacy of echocardiography in a regional setting.
Design:
Consecutive patients referred for echocardiography studied prospectively using a pro-forma to be completed before and after echocardiography.
Setting:
Regional hospital in New South Wales.
Participants:
A total of 103 consecutive patients.
Main Outcome Measures:
Utilisation and clinical efficacy of echocardiography.
Results:
No significant abnormalities were detected in 41.7% of patients, but unexpected abnormalities were found in 31.1%. For 60% of pretest diagnoses there was a clinically important change in diagnostic certainty following the test and changes to treatment occurred in 30.1% of patients. A total of 19 patients with neurological events underwent echocardiography but none had cardiac thrombus demonstrated although thrombus was demonstrated in additional seven.
Conclusions:
Echocardiography appears to be used appropriately in our regional setting, resulting in major changes to diagnostic certainty and leading to alterations to treatments in almost one-third of patients. Education in relation to the use of echocardiography in patients with neurological events is warranted.
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