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- Title
Do computer generated ECG reports improve interpretation by accident and emergency senior house officers?
- Authors
Goodacre, S.; Webster, A.; Morris, F.
- Abstract
<bold>Objectives: </bold>To determine whether access to a computer generated electrocardiogram (ECG) report can reduce errors of interpretation by senior house officers (SHOs) in an accident and emergency department.<bold>Methods: </bold>Ten SHOs were asked to interpret 50 ECGs each: 25 with computer generated reports, 25 without. Their answers, and the computer generated reports, were compared with a "gold standard" produced by two experienced clinicians. The primary outcome measure was the proportion of major errors of interpretation.<bold>Results: </bold>The computer reading system made two major errors (4%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1% to 13.5%) compared with the gold standard. Access to the computer report did not significantly reduce major errors among SHOs (46 (18.4%) with report v 56 (22.4%) without, odds ratio 0.64, 95% CI 0.36% to 1.14%, p=0.13) or improve the proportion completely correct (104 (41.6%) with report v 91 (36.4%) without, odds ratio 1.43, 95% CI 0.88 to 2.33, p=0.15).<bold>Conclusions: </bold>SHOs have a high error rate when interpreting ECGs, which is not significantly reduced by access to a computer generated report. Junior doctors should continue to seek expert senior help when they have to interpret a difficult ECG.
- Subjects
ENGLAND; ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHY; ELECTRODIAGNOSIS; EMERGENCY medical services; MEDICAL personnel; MEDICAL emergencies; ACCIDENTS; DIAGNOSTIC errors; CLINICAL competence; CLINICAL trials; COMPARATIVE studies; CONFIDENCE intervals; HOSPITAL emergency services; HOSPITAL medical staff; RESEARCH methodology; MEDICAL cooperation; RESEARCH; SIGNAL processing; EVALUATION research; RANDOMIZED controlled trials; COMPUTER-aided diagnosis; PREVENTION
- Publication
Postgraduate Medical Journal, 2001, Vol 77, Issue 909, p455
- ISSN
0032-5473
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1136/pmj.77.909.455