Usual care as determined by treating team. Ultrasound may still be part of the workup per the treating team's discretion.

Point-of-care ultrasound protocol will involve cardiac views (for pericardial effusion, left ventricular function, left and right ventricular equality, aortic root dilation, and inferior vena cava status), lung views (for pneumothorax, signs of alveolar interstitial syndrome), abdominal views for free fluid, and a view of the abdominal aorta for aneurysm.

Based on final diagnosis as determined by final review of the patient's overall visit in the medical record, it will be determined what the appropriate intervention(s) that the patient should have received. Subsequently, the amount of time that elapsed (minutes) between time the patient was roomed in the emergency department (ED) and time to when they received the intervention will be collected. All these time points are readily available in the electronic medical record in the patient care timeline. This outcome will help determine whether early POCUS affects how quickly patients receive appropriate intervention.

The treating team in the ED will be asked for their diagnostic impression of the patient's chief complaint at several points during the patient's time in the ED. These points will be (1) after the primary provider's initial assessment, (2) at time of disposition, and (3) if they are in the early POCUS group, after the POCUS findings are relayed to them. They will select their single most likely diagnosis each time, which will be compared against a final diagnosis as determined by final review of the patient's overall visit in the medical record (as this study's gold standard for diagnosis). This outcome will examine how often (percentage-wise) the treating team's diagnosis matches the final diagnosis as well as if early POCUS has any impact on helping physicians reach the correct diagnosis.

The patient's medical record will be followed for 30 days after initial presentation for the presence of any repeat visits with the healthcare system for a similar chief complaint. If so, that repeat visit will be reviewed for the presence of a different diagnosis than that established at the original visit, which would suggest that the correct diagnosis had been missed at that time. It will then be determined what the percentage of patients is with such visits out of all patients in the study. This outcome will examine if POCUS helps with picking up diagnoses that might be missed otherwise.