Utility of impedance cardiography to improve physician estimation of hemodynamic parameters in the emergency department.

Emergency physicians must often make assessments of complex hemodynamic parameters. To assess the utility of impedance cardiography (ICG) in the emergency department, the authors examined treating physicians' abilities to assess stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO), and systemic vascular resistance (SVR) by comparing the clinicians' estimates of these values to ICG measurements. Treating physicians were asked to estimate the SV, CO, and SVR of acutely ill patients as being low, normal, or high.