Trial Outcomes & Findings for Evaluation of a Pocket-Sized Ultrasound Device As an Aid to the Physical Examination (NCT NCT01948076)

Beginning in Septemeber 2012 all internal medicine residents at Brigham and Women's hospital were invited to participate and the first 40 residents to respond to email advertisement were enrolled.

Residents with formal ultrasound training were to be excluded but none of the potential participants had had formal training.

Evaluation of a Pocket-Sized Ultrasound Device As an Aid to the Physical Examination

The primary outcome is a comparison of the diagnostic ability of the intervention group as recorded after performing an ultrasound exam and the control group using traditional physical examination techniques. We compared the two groups using the average physical findings correctly identified as present or absent as reflected by a "Present Score" (average # of findings identified out of 17 possible findings) and "Absent Score" (average # of findings identified out of 95 possible). The former is a gauge of a resident's ability to correctly identify present abnormalities while the latter is an assessment of correctly identifying a normal examination when findings are absent. The residents used a examination form to indicate whether or not they felt the physical abnormality was present or absent and how confident he or she was in their answer. This was compared with the gold standard which was presence or absence of the abnormality on professional ultrasound.

For the secondary outcome, we assessed whether there was an improvement in the diagnostic ability of those in the intervention group using traditional physical examination techniques as compared to using the ultrasound device. We compared the two arms using the average physical findings correctly identified as present or absent as reflected by a "Present Score" (average # of findings identified out of 17 possible findings) and "Absent Score" (average # of findings identified out of 95 possible). The residents used a examination form to indicate whether or not they felt the physical abnormality was present or absent using their physical exam alone and then again after using the ultrasound. This was compared with the gold standard which was presence or absence of the abnormality on professional ultrasound.