• Mohamad Moussa and Julie M Stausmire.
• University of Toledo Medical Center Emergency Medicine, Dowling Hall 2455 Mail Stop 1088, 3000 Arlington Ave., Toledo, Ohio 43614.
• J Clin Ultrasound. 2018 Sep 1; 46 (7): 437-441.

PurposeIt is unknown if Emergency Physicians (EPs) rely solely on Emergency Medicine performed Point-Of-Care Ultrasound (EM-POCUS) for clinical decision making or if they proceed to subsequent "gold standard" studies for confirmatory diagnosis.MethodsAfter Institutional Review Board approval, an online survey was distributed by the Ohio Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians to its members.ResultsThe most common EM-POCUS procedures used without confirmatory testing were: determination of cardiac activity during cardiac arrest (81.3%), differentiating cellulitis from abscess (63.2%), central venous catheter placement confirmation (43.2%), pericardial effusion evaluation (41.9%) and focused assessment with sonography for trauma (FAST-37.4%). The responses regarding remaining procedures suggest most physicians do not use EM-POCUS or verify EM-POCUS findings with additional testing. One hundred fifty-five survey responses provided a confidence interval of >90%. Two-thirds (67.7%) of respondents were board-certified EPs with 43.8% in practice for less than 5 years. EM-POCUS examinations were performed at least weekly by 37.4% of respondents; 28.4% performed at least 1 EM-POCUS examination per shift. Nearly half (47.7%) responded they had no concerns regarding use of EM-POCUS.ConclusionsThis study describes the results of a survey on the use of EM-POCUS for clinical decision making by Ohio EPs. A majority of them continues to rely on gold standard testing for confirmatory diagnosis, in addition to EM-POCUS.© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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