Echocardiography Laboratory Receives Accreditation

United Hospital System’s Echocardiography Laboratory, located in Kenosha, Wisconsin was granted accreditation by the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories (ICAEL). The laboratory is one of the first one thousand echocardiography laboratories in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico to be so recognized for its commitment to high quality patient care and its provision of quality diagnostic testing.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, costing society over 83.7 billion dollars a year in health services, medications and lost work time due to disability. One of the most useful diagnostic tools utilizing in determine the presence and extent of heart disease is echocardiography testing. This non-invasive test has become of the standard diagnostic tools with an estimated 10 million echocardiograms performed annually in the United States.

Echocardiography is a complex imaging technique that relies on the experience of the technician and the physician who perform the test. Their respective technical and interpretive abilities determine the diagnostic accuracy of the echocardiographic test.

The ICAEL was established with the support of the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the Society of Pediatric Echocardiography (SOPE) to provide a peer review mechanism to encourage and recognize the provision of quality echocardiographic diagnostic evaluations by a process of voluntary accreditation. A non-profit organization, the ICAEL is dedicated to ensuring high quality patient care and to promoting health care.