Point-of-Care Screening Echocardiograms and their Potential Utility in the Acute Inpatient Medical Setting

Demands on echocardiography services are increasing annually. This Quality Improvement Project aimed to see whether a point of care screening echocardiography (SE) service in the acute inpatient medical setting might help reduce demand on full trans-thoracic echocardiography services (FE). The indication and results of all FE requests on the admission ward were analysed over a three-month period. Following this, it was considered whether a theoretical SE occurring prior, would have changed the on-going utilisation of FE resources. Of the 67 requests analysed, 57 underwent FE. 25% revealed no abnormality. In 47%, a SE prior may have changed the future use of FE resources. This small retrospective review highlights the potential benefits of a SE service and further work is required.