The Beyond Ultrasound First Forum was conceived to increase awareness that the quality
of obstetric and gynecologic ultrasound can be improved, and is inconsistent throughout
the country, likely due to multiple factors, including the lack of a standardized
curriculum and competency assessment in ultrasound teaching. The forum brought together
representatives from many professional associations; the imaging community including
radiology, obstetrics and gynecology, and emergency medicine among others; in addition
to government agencies, insurers, industry, and others with common interest in obstetric
and gynecologic ultrasound. This group worked together in focus sessions aimed at
developing solutions on how to standardize and improve ultrasound training at the
resident level and beyond. A new curriculum and competency assessment program for
teaching residents (obstetrics and gynecology, radiology, and any other specialty
doing obstetrics and gynecology ultrasound) was presented, and performance measures
of ultrasound quality in clinical practice were discussed. The aim of this forum was
to increase and unify the quality of ultrasound examinations in obstetrics and gynecology
with the ultimate goal of improving patient safety and quality of clinical care. This
report describes the proceedings of this conference including possible approaches
to resident teaching and means to improve the inconsistent quality of ultrasound examinations
performed today.
Key words
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: July 05, 2017
Accepted:
June 26,
2017
Received in revised form:
June 22,
2017
Received:
April 27,
2017
Footnotes
Supported by a grant from GE Healthcare.
W.L. received honoraria from GE Healthcare as a faculty speaker, and limited research funding from Samsung. S.H.M. received compensation from Imorgon Medical LLC as an investor and member of the LLC. E.S. received founders stock from SonoSim as chief executive officer and founding member. The remaining authors report no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
