Kenya does not have enough experts to perform heart scans in patients who are very sick and in need of urgent intervention. The purpose of this research is to find out whether training Kenyan nurses to perform basic heart scans would shorten the time it takes to know whether the heart and lungs are working normally in very sick patients, to guide treatment. Patients will be placed into one of two groups: One group will have a quick scan of the heart and lungs carried out by trained nurses to see how well these organs are working, in addition to receiving the normal care offered at the hospital. The other group will receive the normal care offered in the hospital only and will not have a scan performed by these nurses. The time it takes to make a diagnosis between the two groups will then be compared. Should the group that has heart scans by nurses be found to spend less time waiting for a diagnosis to be made, more nurses in Kenya will be trained to provide this service, to minimise delays in our emergency departments.
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Time to diagnosis
Timeframe: 24 hours
Wangari Waweru-Siika, FRCA