Ultrasonography (US) is becoming increasingly utilized in the United States for the evaluation of blunt @entity1661 (BAT). The objective of this study was to assess the cost impact of utilizing US in the evaluation of @entity1 with BAT in a major @entity130 center. All @entity1 sustaining BAT during a 6-month period before US was used at our institution (Jan- @entity1178 1993) were compared to BAT @entity1 from a recent period in which US has been utilized (Jan- @entity1178 1995). The numbers of US, computed tomography (CT), and diagnostic peritoneal lavage (DPL) were tabulated for each group. Financial cost for each of these procedures as determined by our finance department were as follows: US  96, CT  494, DPL  137. These numbers are representative of actual hospital expenditures exclusive of physician fees as calculated in 1994 U.S. dollars. Cost analysis was performed with t test and chi squared test, and significance was defined as P < 0.05. There were 890 BAT admissions in the 1993 study period and 1033 admissions in the 1995 study period. During the 1993 period, 642 procedures were performed on the 890 @entity1 to evaluate the abdomen: 0 US, 466 CT, and 176 DPL (see table) [table: see text]. This compares to 801 procedures on the 1,033 @entity1 in 1995: 552 US, 228 CT, and 21 DPL. Total cost was  254,316 for the 1993 group and  168,501 for the 1995 group. Extrapolated to a 1-year period, a significant (P < 0.05) cost savings of  171,630 would be realized. Cost per @entity1 evaluated was significantly reduced from  285.75 in 1993 to  163.12 in 1995 (P < 0.05). This represents a 43 per cent reduction in per @entity1 expenditure for evaluating the abdomen. By effectively utilizing ultrasonography in the evaluation of @entity1 with blunt @entity1661 , a significant cost savings can be realized. This effect results chiefly from an eight-fold reduction in the use of DPL, and a two-fold reduction in the use of CT.

Evaluating blunt XXXX with sonography: a cost analysis.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients', 'patient'] @entity1178 :: ('3725', 'Gene') :: ['Jun'] @entity1661 :: ('MESH:D000008', 'Disease') :: ['abdominal trauma'] @entity130 :: ('MESH:D014947', 'Disease') :: ['trauma']
@entity1661 :: (MESH:D000008,Disease) :: ['abdominal trauma']
