Video clip training improved emergency medicine residents’ interpretation ability of visual ejection fraction

Background: Information on cardiac contractility is very important in resuscitation of critically ill patients. However, the measurement of ejection fractions by echocardiography is very difficult to perform for non-cardiologists. We developed a video clip to train emergency medicine residents to measure visual ejection fraction and compared the improvement in their interpretation ability with that following the conventional training method. Objectives: Improvement of interpreting ability of vEF in short period. Methods: A total of 27 multicentre emergency medicine residents were recruited and divided into conventional training group (N = 13) and video clip training group (N = 14). Self-training was done for 1 week. Pre-test and post-test comprising 20 questions were used for evaluation, and scores and interpretation time were recorded. Results: The score of the video clip training group showed a statistically significant improvement in contrast to the conventional training group (the score of pre- and post-test, ±5% scoring method: correct answer; video clip training group, 5.4/20 to 10.4/20 ( p < 0.001) versus conventional training group, 5.8/20 to 6.7/20 ( p = 0.204)). Furthermore, there was a statistically significant reduction in the interpretation time (interpretation time of video clip training group, 417.7–358.8 s ( p = 0.005) versus conventional training group, 416.8–411.5 s ( p = 0. 497)). Conclusion: In the video clip training group, interpretation accuracy improved, and the interpretation time was shorter than that of the conventional training group. Based on these results, we conclude that improvement in the visual ejection fraction interpretation ability by emergency medicine residents can be expected.