Insufficient training among cardiologists in reading echocardiography results is wasting healthcare dollars and subjecting patients to unnecessary procedures, researchers said here.
A review by sonographers of cardiologist-interpreted echocardiography findings at a Milwaukee medical center during a period of just over a year indicated major discrepancies in 29% of cases, leading to unnecessary further diagnostic testing or treatments for the wrong indication, according to a study presented here at the American Society of Echocardiography meeting.
No surprise there. As long as ‘reading’ an echo remains subjective, there will be discrepancies. All investigations should be automated so as to minimize human errors. Humans are required later, after the tests have been quantified, to analyze and correlate the test findings.
