Kontakt 2015, 17(4):e206-e210 | DOI: 10.1016/j.kontakt.2015.10.002

The involvement of nurses in clinical echocardiographyNursing - Original article

Ivana Chloubová^a,*, Martin Eisenberger^a,b, Alan Bulava^a,b, Martin Pěnička^c, Elke Dieudonne^c

^a University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Faculty of Health and Social Studies, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

^b South Bohemia Hospital, Department of Cardiology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

^c OLV Hospital, Cardiovascular Centre, Aalst, Belgium

Echocardiography is a basic examination in cardiology used to assess the anatomy and function of the heart. An echocardiography nurse is a health care specialist who is able to use echocardiographic equipment to obtain images of the heart. Standards for echocardiography personnel vary widely between countries. In the Czech Republic, there is no training program for nurses to carry out echocardiograms and the work is done almost exclusively by physicians. In many other countries, including the United Kingdom and the USA, specialist nurses carry out and report echocardiograms independently. In this article, we compare requirements for echocardiography nurses in different countries.

Keywords: echocardiography; nurse; nursing; international comparison; standards

Received: January 21, 2015; Revised: September 8, 2015; Accepted: October 9, 2015; Published: November 20, 2015  Show citation