BMJ 1995;310:468 (18 February)

Letters

Formal teaching can reduce serious errors in interpretation

EDITOR,--We were not surprised by the results of Hugh Montgomery and colleagues' study of doctors' ability to interpret electrocardiograms.1 We have audited the ability of senior house officers to interpret electrocardiograms in an accident and emergency department.2 We found that only 114 of 245 traces were interpreted correctly but that management was seriously affected by misinterpretation in only eight cases. After formal teaching and the issue of guidelines serious errors of misinterpretation fell by half to four out of 242 (1.6%; confidence interval 0.7% to 4%).

We also tested the ability of cardiographers, cardiac technicians, nurses in the coronary care unit, anaesthetic registrars, and medical senior house officers to interpret electrocardiograms; we used a standard set of 20 electrocardiograms. All the subjects were asked to report the rate, rhythm, QRS axis, and abnormalities. Answers were graded 1-4, where 1=complete concordance; 2=minor disagreement (for example, first degree heart block); 3=disagreement (for . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Continuous ambulatory electrocardiography in elderly people
Ismo Raiha
BMJ 1995 310: 1136-1137. [Extract] [Full Text]

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