Does training level affect the accuracy of visual assessment of capillary refill time?

The time to achieve 90% return of fitting curve was reported as “image analysis CRT” Image analysis of CRT of 20 ED patients ranged from 0.47 to 7.98 s, with a mean of 2.44 ± 2.09 s. The highest intra-observer reliability among the three visual assessment times was displayed by one of the physician assistants (0.70 for single measure and 0.88 for average measures); however, it was also as low as 0.15 for a single measure and 0.34 for average measures by one of the non-clinicians. Personal work experience may help improve both truth and precision of CRT assessments and increase the accuracy among individual observers. [...]training level appears to be an important factor that affects the reliability of visual CRT assessment. LBB has a grant/research support from Philips Healthcare, the NIH, Nihon Kohden Corp., Zoll Medical Corp, PCORI, BrainCool, and United Therapeutics and owes patents including 7 issued patents and several pending patents involving the use of medical slurries as human coolant devices to create slurries, reperfusion cocktails, and measurement of respiratory quotient.