Quality Health Care in Acute Shoulder Pain: What Is the Contribution of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound?

Abstract

For the purpose of assessing the impact of ultrasound in patients with acute shoulder pain, we conducted an analysis of quality health care indicators: need for reevaluation of the pain, rate of referral to specialized medicine and length of time in the emergency department. We reviewed the 1,433 records of patients attended to between 2015 and 2016. Thirty days after the first examination, 90 patients (10.1%) had returned to the control group (56 through the emergency department and 34 because of the), whereas, in the ultrasound (US) group, 14 (2.5%) had returned at least once (12 through the emergency department and 2 because of the PCC) (P<.001). The rate of referral to specialized medicine in the control group was 36.5%, whereas in the US group it was 6.21% (P<.0001). The average length of stay was 94.5 (standard deviation [SD] 34.3) minutes in the control group and 105.4 (SD 40.1) minutes in the US group (P<.0001). Our results suggest that the practice of shoulder ultrasound improves health care quality in these patients, at the cost of a slight increase in health care time.

Keywords: Ecografía; Emergency departments; Hombro doloroso; Servicios de urgencias; Shoulder pain; Ultrasonography.