Cost and Benefit Analysis of Surgeon-(SP-POCUS) supporting decision making in a General Surgery Department

Background: There still is reluctance among surgeons when it comes to using bedside US in their daily clinical practice, except for very specific fields. Generally, the decision-making process relies on imaging techniques (e.g. CT, MRI). This may lead to a latency of execution, and consequently to a delay in decision making. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess the economic impact of systematic and routine use of surgeon-performed point-of-care US (SP-POCUS) in the everyday activities of a surgical department, both for urgent and elective cases. Methods: We conducted a cost-benefit analysis comparing the incremental costs and savings of diagnostic strategies based on alternative procedures to bedside US. The dataset refers to 478 SP-POCUS performed at the General Surgery Department of Policlinico San Pietro (Bergamo, Italy) between January 2018 and February 2020. The alternatives to SP-POCUS were computed tomography (CT), X-ray (RX), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ...