Variation in potentially non-indicated cardiac testing prevalence for high-risk and low-risk cohorts across 306 hospital referral regions, 2011
| Composite (all tests) | ECGs | Cardiovascular stress tests | Echocardiograms | Advanced cardiac imaging | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High-risk | Low-risk | High-risk | Low-risk | High-risk | Low-risk | High-risk | Low-risk | High-risk | Low-risk | |
| Mean | 20.2% | 12.8% | 19.4% | 12.4% | 0.71% | 0.30% | 0.64% | 0.25% | 0.15% | 0.04% |
| Coefficient of variation | 0.31 | 0.25 | 0.14 | 0.26 | 0.47 | 0.52 | 0.90 | 1.04 | 0.93 | 1.46 |
| IQR | 18.2–21.9% | 10.4–14.7% | 17.5–21.1% | 10.0–14.3% | 0.47–0.92% | 0.19–0.41% | 0.24–0.93% | 0.06–0.37% | 0.04–0.22% | 0.00–0.05% |
Testing prevalence indicates per cent of beneficiaries with one or more tests without associated symptomatic indication in the calendar year. Data reflect 1.9 million person-years in the high-risk cohort and 1.6 million person-years in the low-risk cohort.