Utility of hand-carried ultrasound devices used by cardiologists with and without significant echocardiographic experience in the cardiology inpatient and outpatient settings

Hand-carried ultrasound devices can provide new, clinically relevant and reliable information, and are most useful for evaluating left ventricular function, regional wall motion, valves, and pericardial effusions; they also can provide significant unanticipated information,in the inpatient setting. However, cardiologists with limited echocardiographic experience take more time, more often find the outpatient examination difficult to perform, and interpret and more often obtain misleading regional wall motion information.