Assessment of Ultrasound for Integration with Clinical Medicine

Assessment, Technology

Working with Pelagique, LLC, a Department of Defense medical contractor, CRESST has been instrumental in developing and validating ultrasound proficiency metrics—a critical step toward responsibly integrating ultrasound technology into clinical medicine.

As part of our pioneering work, we created an ontology of the fundamentals of ultrasound, which defines the knowledge, skills, and user attributes required to (1) measure user performance; (2) make inferences about their knowledge and skills, based on performance over time; and (3) recommend targeted training based on these inferences.

We are currently creating an ontology-based assessment and training framework built on study results and expert feedback that includes management and analysis tools. These employ ontologies and related graphical probabilistic computational models.

This groundbreaking effort will be highly useful to future national and international professional organizations that monitor and guide ultrasound practice, licensure, accreditation, and policy, offering the potential to reduce costs and increase ultrasound accessibility for the entire medical industry.