Lightning rounds 52: Echo tips with Michael Lanspa

The podcast explores practical tips and common pitfalls in critical care echocardiography (ECHO). Dr. Michael Lanspa, in charge of the Critical Care Echo Lab at Intermountain Healthcare, shares insights on optimizing ECHO use, from basic assessments to more advanced techniques. A key recommendation involves saving ECHO images for documentation and completing exams thoroughly to avoid premature conclusions, illustrated by examples of saddle pulmonary embolism and aortic dissection. The discussion covers ejection fraction measurements, emphasizing the importance of clinical context and the limitations of relying solely on numbers. Lanspa advises against excessive quantification in favor of qualitative assessments for identifying severe pathology, cautioning against the overemphasis on measurements driven by tradition rather than clinical utility.