Appropriate Use Criteria for Stress Echocardiography

Pediatric appropriate use criteria for echocardiography: implications for clinical practice.

The first pediatric Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) were recently published by the American College of Cardiology. This document consists of common clinical scenarios for which a transthoracic echocardiogram is ordered in outpatient settings. Echocardiography is the most common imaging modality used in the outpatient setting to assess children with suspected heart disease. However, it is known t...

Appropriate use criteria for echocardiography in the Netherlands

INTRODUCTION Appropriate use criteria (AUC) for echocardiography based on clinical scenarios were previously published by an American Task Force. We determined whether members of the Dutch Working Group on Echocardiography (WGE) would rate these scenarios in a similar way. METHODS All 32 members of the WGE were invited to judge clinical scenarios independently using a blanked version of the p...

Appropriate Use Criteria.

Clinical criteria and the appropriate use of transthoracic echocardiography for the exclusion of infective endocarditis.

BACKGROUND Clinical guidelines currently suggest that transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) be carried out in all patients with suspected endocarditis, but the use of TTE where there is a low probability of infective endocarditis has a poor diagnostic yield. This screening approach may no longer be appropriate. OBJECTIVE To examine whether clinical criteria might aid decision making with respe...

Can appropriate use criteria lead to appropriate care?

T he rapid pace of technological development has brought a wealth of diagnostic and therapeutic options to the care of patients. These new diagnostic and therapeutic tools have dramatically altered medical care but have come with a steep price tag, and it is not clear that the improvement in the quality of care is proportional to the cost of the medical system. In recognition of the fact that t...