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Accuracy of emergency and critical care residents reading emergency cranial CT scan

Nathan Muluberhan

mergency department (ED) arecrucial entry points to healthcare services and usually overcrowded. Cases in ED are time essence and emergency physician (EP) must act quickly according to his ordered and related investigations. Computed tomography (CT) frequently used in the differential diagnosis of intracranial pathology during ED visits. Only 39% of ED have access to radiologist’s interpretation of all images within hours of image acquisition. The diagnostic error from failure to detect an abnormal radiography in a timely manner may result in poor patient outcomes in the emergency setting. The ability to select and interpret diagnostic imaging is an integral skill for all EP. The Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference highlighted that the assessment of an EP diagnostic reasoning skills is vital to effective training and patient safety.EM is young field of study in Ethiopia. Very little is known about EMCC residents’ accuracy in interpretation of emergency cranial CT scans. This study aimed in determining the accuracy of emergency cranial CT reading of EMCC residents of Addis Ababa University& St Paul Millennium Medical College as compared to neuroradiologist. A prospective cross-sectional study employed on the EMCC residents of AAU, and St’ Paul MMC. Data collected from May 2019-June 2019 by using structured questionnaires as well as through radiant view software by displaying the full slices of the cranial CT scans. Forty two EMCC residents were enrolled in this study. 24 from Addis Ababa University and 18 from St Paul Millennium Medical College. Over all accuracy rate in interpretation cranial CT scans was 57.6%. The overall discrepancy rate was very high (42.4%) compared to prior studies. There is moderate agreement between EMCC and neuroradiologist (kappa 0.5)