Understanding Appropriate Use Criteria in Nuclear Medicine

Understanding appropriate use criteria in nuclear medicine.

There has been a significant increase in cardiac radionuclide imaging over the past decade, leading to a corresponding increase in scrutiny from Federal and private health plans questioning the necessity of these tests. In response to efforts by third-party payers to limit all types of cardiovascular imaging studies, the American College of Cardiology Foundation, in conjunction with other profe...

Appropriate Use Criteria.

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...

Appropriate Use Criteria for Ventilation–Perfusion Imaging in Pulmonary Embolism

Perfusion lung imaging for diagnosing pulmonary embolism (PE) was introduced 50 y ago (1). At that time, it offered a noninvasive alternative to pulmonary angiography in patients with a clinical suspicion of PE. Because there are many causes of diminished regional blood flow in the lungs, particularly redistribution of blood flow away from regions with lung disease, the subsequent introduction ...

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...