Lung ultrasonography can be rapidly performed in the majority of patients with MET activation for respiratory deterioration. As an independent diagnostic test, lung ultrasonography is non-inferior to the medical emergency team (MET) clinical assessment and may prevent unnecessary treatments if used simultaneously. The ultrasound exam was completed in 49/50 (98%) patients enrolled in the study with a mean duration of 13 ± 4 min. When excluding six cases that were not amenable to diagnosis by our algorithm, we report a lung ultrasonography diagnostic accuracy of 84% (37/44) which is similar to the accuracy of the MET clinical diagnosis of 75% (33/44) (p = 0.29).

Read More