• Andrea R Levine, Michael T McCurdy, Marc T Zubrow, Alfred Papali, Haney A Mallemat, and Avelino C Verceles.
• Department of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 22 S. Greene St., Baltimore, MD, 21201, United States. Electronic address: Alevine1@umm.edu.
• J Crit Care. 2015 Jun 9.

PurposeIntensive care unit telemedicine (tele-ICU) uses audiovisual systems to remotely monitor and manage patients. Intensive care unit ultrasound can augment an otherwise limited bedside evaluation. To date, no studies have utilized tele-ICU technology to assess the quality and clinical use of real-time ultrasound images. We assessed whether tele-intensivists can instruct nonphysicians to obtain high-quality, clinically useful ultrasound images.MethodsThis prospective pilot evaluated the effectiveness of a brief educational session of nonphysician "ultrasonographers" on their ability to obtain ultrasound images (right internal jugular vein, bilateral lung apices and bases, cardiac subxiphoid view, bladder) with real-time tele-intensivist guidance. All ultrasound screen images were simultaneously photographed with a 2-way camera and saved on the ultrasound machine. The tele-intensivist assessed image quality, and an independent ultrasound expert rated their use in guiding clinical decisions.ResultsThe intensivist rated the tele-ICU camera images as high quality (70/77, 91%) and suitable for guiding clinical decisions (74/77, 96%). Only bilateral lung apices demonstrated differences in quality and clinical use. All other images were rated noninferior and clinically useful.ConclusionTele-intensivists can guide minimally trained nonphysicians to obtain high-quality, clinically useful ultrasound images. For most anatomic sites, tele-ICU images are of similar quality to those acquired directly by ultrasound.Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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