ArticleCureus2026
Improving After-Hours Echocardiography Communication: A Resident-Led Quality Improvement Project.
Article in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background In our paediatric inpatient units, after-hours echocardiogram orders frequently lacked proper communication between ordering providers and interpreting paediatric cardiologists. This gap contributed to imaging delays, inefficiencies, and potential patient safety risks. We aimed to improve provider notification compliance for after-hours echocardiogram orders. Design We designed a resident-led quality improvement (QI) project using sequential Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. Baseline data were obtained from self-reported provider surveys. Compliance with communication was measured as the percentage of providers who self-reported "Always" notifying the on-call cardiologist at the time of order placement. Interventions included email reminders, poster reminders in work areas, and an electronic health record (EHR) modification requiring mandatory entry of indication and notification details before order completion. Three PDSA cycles were implemented over a 16-month period. Each cycle was monitored for compliance trends, with iterative adjustments based on feedback from frontline providers. Results Baseline compliance was low, with surveys highlighting frequent lapses in provider communication. The first PDSA cycle, involving email reminders, produced a trivial improvement in compliance, while the second cycle, involving posters, further reinforced the process. The most significant and sustained improvement followed the EHR modification in the third cycle, after which communication compliance exceeded 70% and was sustained over six months. Conclusions This resident-led project demonstrated that while simple, low-cost interventions produced modest gains, sustained improvement required an EHR-based solution, highlighting the value of combining educational and systems-level strategies to enhance patient safety.
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