Ultrasound by Nurses in Heart Failure Patients

Is Routine Ultrasound Examination Performed by Nurses Useful in Heart Failure Patients at a Outpatient Clinic

Cross-over study aimed to study the diagnostic and clinical impact of routinely adding a pocket-size ultrasound examination to traditional care at a outpatient heart failure clinic.

Patient inclusion: Outpatient heart failure clinic. Patients are eligible for inclusion if the are referred with heart failure and concent to participate in the study. No other exclusion criteria other than no willing/able to give their concent.

Study population: Approximately 80 patients Intervention: All participants will undergo careful medical history, physical examination and blood tests led by nurses. All patients will be examined twice (by two nurses), one will routinely add ultrasound examination of the pleural space and the inferior vena cava to assess volume state, the other nurse will not perform ultrasound examination. Full cross-over design were nurses do ultrasound examinations at a random matter.

Patients will then be examined by echocardiography by experience cardiologist's echocardiographers. Outcome measures:Change in therapy after routinely performed ultrasound examinations vs controls, detection of volume state when performing ultrasound examinations compared to controls with cardiologist's echocardiographic examination as a gold standard.

Descriptive data of patients before, under and after examinations.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients referred to the outpatient heart failure clinic at the local hospital

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not able or not willing to concent