Quality-improvement program for ultrasound-based fetal anatomy screening using large-scale clinical audit

A large-scale audit and peer review of ultrasound images may improve sonographer performance, but is rarely performed consistently as it is time-consuming and expensive. The aim of this study was to perform a large-scale audit of routine fetal anatomy scans to assess if a full clinical audit cycle can improve clinical image-acquisition standards.

A large-scale, clinical, retrospective audit was conducted of ultrasound images obtained during all routine anomaly scans performed from 18 + 0 to 22 + 6 weeks' gestation at a UK hospital during 2013 (Cycle 1), to build a baseline understanding of the performance of sonographers. Targeted actions were undertaken in response to the findings with the aim of improving departmental performance. A second full-year audit was then performed of fetal anatomy ultrasound images obtained during the following year (Cycle 2). An independent pool of experienced sonographers used an online tool to assess all scans in terms of two parameters: scan completeness (i.e. were all images archived?) and image quality using objective scoring (i.e. were images of high quality?). Both were assessed in each audit at the departmental level and at the individual sonographer level. A random sample of 10% of scans was used to assess interobserver reproducibility.

In Cycle 1 of the audit, 103 501 ultrasound images from 6257 anomaly examinations performed by 22 sonographers were assessed; in Cycle 2, 153 557 images from 6406 scans performed by 25 sonographers were evaluated. The analysis was performed including the images obtained by the 20 sonographers who participated in both cycles. Departmental median scan completeness improved from 72% in the first year to 78% at the second assessment (P < 0.001); median image-quality score for all fetal views improved from 0.83 to 0.86 (P < 0.001). The improvement was greatest for those sonographers who performed poorest in the first audit; with regards to scan completeness, the poorest performing 15% of sonographers in Cycle 1 improved by more than 30 percentage points, and with regards to image quality, the poorest performing 11% in Cycle 1 showed a more than 10% improvement. Interobserver repeatability of scan completeness and image-quality scores across different fetal views were similar to those in the published literature.

A clinical audit and a set of targeted actions helped improve sonographer scan-acquisition completeness and scan quality. Such adherence to recommended clinical acquisition standards may increase the likelihood of correct measurement and thereby fetal growth assessment, and should allow better detection of abnormalities. As such a large-scale audit is time consuming, further advantages would be achieved if this process could be automated. © 2018 The Authors. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.