Ultrasonography in the Emergency Department

Aim To investigate if the proportion of correctly diagnosed patients at 4 hours after arrival to the Emergency Department (ED) increases when patients are diagnosed with standard diagnostics and focused ultrasonography examination (f-US) compared to standard diagnostics alone. Methods The investigators are medical doctors who work in the ED and who use f-US as a diagnostic tool. The patients are those arriving to the ED with symptoms of difficulties of respiration. All patients receive a f-US but only in the intervention group these results will be unblinded to the treating physician once he has made his 1. presumptive diagnosis . A final presumptive diagnosis has to be made within 4 hours from the patient´s admittance to the ED. The correct diagnosis is assessed by a blinded audit of the medical journal. This project holds the potential to develop evidence-based optimization of early diagnostic accuracy.