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Updated: Jun 12, 2026
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Ultrasonic Assessment of Myocardial Microstructure
Published on: January 14, 2014
Detection of discrepancies in facilitated echocardiographic reporting using a prototype rule generator
Sonal Chandra1, Bob Arling, Joseph Rock
1University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Summary
Facilitated echocardiographic reporting has discrepancies. A new tool identified contradictory or inconsistent findings in 4.0-7.1% of reports, aiding interpretation review.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Medical Informatics
Background:
- Facilitated reporting offers advantages over traditional echocardiogram transcription.
- However, physicians may select conflicting finding codes, leading to reporting errors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a tool to identify contradictory and inconsistent finding codes in echocardiographic reports.
- To determine the frequency of such discrepancies in finalized reports.
Main Methods:
- A tool was created to flag combinations of codes that are contradictory or typically not found together.
- A historical dataset of 96,772 finalized echocardiographic reports was analyzed over 11 years.
Main Results:
- Contradictory findings occurred in 4.0% (transthoracic), 3.6% (transesophageal), and 7.1% (stress) of reports.
- Inconsistent findings were present in 24.1% of transthoracic and 10.1% of transesophageal echocardiography reports.
Conclusions:
- Facilitated reporting with discrete finding codes enables rule generation for discrepancy identification.
- This system can alert readers to potential errors, prompting review and correction of echocardiographic interpretations.
