There were 123 responses to the questionnaire. Considering that 125/1,038 e-mail messages were reported as “undelivered”, the response rate to the invitation was 13 %. Many responders did not answer all the questions presented in the questionnaire, and some answers and comments were somewhat difficult to understand and evaluate.
First group of questions
Answers were gathered from different parts of Europe; 63.4 % were from five nations (Germany, Austria, France, Spain and Italy). The distribution according to countries is presented in Table 1.
Table 1 Nationality of responders There were 25 responses (20.3 %) from hospitals with fewer than 400 beds, 52 (42.3 %) from hospitals with between 400 and 1,000 beds and 46 (37.4 %) from hospitals with more than 1,000 beds. Most answers were from teaching hospitals (91.1 %).
Second group of questions
Most radiology departments (77 %) have fewer than 10 working US units; 22 % have between 10 and 20 US machines; only 0.8 % have more than 20 machines. Small, portable units are available in 64.5 % of departments, 3D/4D capabilities are present in 52 % and elastography in 48.2 %, and 67.3 % have the possibility to perform CEUS examinations.
Up to 57.6 % of radiology departments perform more than 10,000 examinations per year; between 3,000 and 10,000 examinations per year are performed in 33.1 % of cases; only 9.3 % of departments perform fewer than 3,000 examinations.
Abdominal US is the most frequent exam (51.51 %), followed by breast (14.46 %), musculoskeletal (11.59 %), pelvic (10.88 %) and vascular (10.42 %) US examinations. Contrast-enhanced US (CEUS) studies constitute about 4.39 %. US is used by radiologists in emergency in 96.6 % of cases and in paediatrics in 74.6 %. Comments indicate that most of those who answered “no” did not have a paediatric section in their hospital.
Transvaginal US is used in obstetric examinations by 15.8 % of responders and in gynaecological studies by 50.7 %. Endoscopic US is used by radiologists in 13.4 % and intravascular US in 14.6 %; radiologists are called by surgeons for intraoperative US in 64.2 % of cases.
There were 49 responders who indicated the actual number of US examinations performed/year. The characteristics of hospitals in which the radiology department performs more than 20,000 ultrasound examinations/year are presented in Table 2.
Table 2 Characteristics of the hospitals in which the radiology department performs more than 20,000 US examinations/year (nationality, presence/absence of teaching duties, number of inpatients, number of US machines available, ratio between number of US examinations performed by non-radiology specialists vs. radiologists) Those who reported fewer than 5,000 US examinations/year are reported in Table 3.
Table 3 Characteristics of the hospitals in which the radiology department performs less than 5,000 US examinations/year (nationality, presence/absence of teaching duties, number of inpatients, number of US machines available, ratio between number of US examinations performed by non-radiology specialists vs. radiologists) Third group of questions
The first question in this group was whether the hospital was organised with a centralised US laboratory where physicians from all specialties work together.
There were 13/110 positive answers (11.8 %) from Germany (5), Spain (3), Austria (2), Hungary (2) and Croatia (1). All other hospitals have US machines scattered throughout the different radiological and non-radiological departments. The centralised US laboratory is organised together by the radiology and the internal medicine departments in three cases; it is truly multidisciplinary, with all specialties concurring, in three others; it is run by radiology in two. The remaining two positive answers did not provide further detail about their organisation.
The second question related to the role of sonographers. Only 15/110 (13.6 %) department heads stated they work with sonographers. They are located in Spain (3), Germany (2), UK (2), The Netherlands (2), Austria (1), Belgium (1), Ireland (1), Lithuania (1) and Montenegro (1). In all others, US examinations are done directly by the radiologists. There were 12 comments describing how the work of sonographers is organised. Sonographers do both the examination and the report, with the radiologist checking difficult cases only in four hospitals; sonographers do the studies and the radiologist takes a final look and writes the reports in six; two departments state they use sonographers for vascular examinations only.
The third question related to the organisation of training programmes in US. Radiology residents are trained in 91.1 % of responders. Some centres organise a theoretical course on basic principles of US before starting practical activity. Then, clinical practice is usually performed according to organ/systems training schemes. Residents work under close supervision of a senior radiologist: they approach the patient, perform a preliminary examination and issue a first report, which is then checked by the expert. The aim is to obtain progressive growth of competences: from scanning capabilities, to reporting capabilities, to complete independence.
The length of the period of training within the US laboratory in the various teaching hospitals and the minimum number of US examinations required before the end of the residency period are summarised in Tables 4 and 5.
Table 4 Length of the period of training within the US laboratory in the 84 teaching hospitals that reported it Table 5 Minimum number of US examinations to be performed before the end of the residency period in the 75 teaching hospitals that reported it There was a direct correlation between the number of US exams performed in the department and the depth of US involvement during training: training programmes in the two hospitals where the lowest number of US examinations/year is performed indicate a period of 3 months and 250 and 500 examinations. However, a hospital with a workload of 45,000 US studies per year (in which, however, the examinations are performed by sonographers) suggested only 2–3 months of training and 100 exams before the end of the residency period.
Training is also provided for non-radiology residents in 37 hospitals. It is most frequently offered to internal medicine, gastroenterology, surgery, anesthesiology, vascular surgery and paediatrics. Comments indicate that these radiology courses allow only theoretical teaching, since observation, but not direct contact with patient, is provided for non-radiologists.
All 15 departments working with sonographers provide, or are planning to provide, starting in 2012, training courses for these professionals. These include both theory and practice; the theoretical part is done, in some cases, together with radiology residents.
As an important technical point, it must be noted that US images performed by radiologists are recorded into PACS systems in 85.6 % of cases. Comments on this question indicated that not all equipment is linked to PACS and that only selected images or videos are often archived; furthermore, technical problems in archiving videos have been reported.
A final group of questions pertained to the US examinations performed outside the radiology department in each hospital.
One question asked about the proportion of US examinations performed by radiologists vs. those performed by non-radiologists. European radiologists, as a whole, still perform a higher number of examinations (61.27 %) than non-radiologists (38.32 %). Differences in the percentage of studies performed in the different hospitals are presented in Table 6.
Table 6 Proportion of US examinations performed by radiologists vs. non-radiologists. Although radiologists, as a whole, perform more US examinations than non-radiologists, the table shows there are differences among different departments, with slightly more than 50 % performing more than 70 % of the studies Comments indicate that most OB/GYN, neurology, vascular, urology, internal medicine, anaesthesiology and gastroenterology departments run their own US units in their wards. CEUS is used in 35.1 % of gastroenterology departments, in 15.1 % of internal medicine, in 10.6 % of transplant units and in 10.4 % of nephrology departments.
The examinations performed out of the radiology department are formally reported in 64.4 % of cases only. Comments indicate that reports are fully stored within the Hospital Information System (HIS) in 31 cases; storage is only partial in 24; no HIS storage is used in 5 cases.
US images obtained outside of the radiology department are recorded into the PACS system of the hospital in 18.3 % of cases only.