To investigate the current situation of quality control management of ultrasonic medicine in Sichuan Province, China, and to establish a basis for exploring more efficient management strategies.

The basic data of ultrasonic quality control (qualification of ultrasound doctors, proportion of ultrasound equipment, operation capacity, and total score of quality control management) of 708 medical institutions in Sichuan Province, China were collected from January 1 to December 31, 2018. The χ² test was used to compare the differences of academic qualifications, professional title, age distribution, and qualification of ultrasound personnel among different levels of hospitals. The rank sum test was used to compare the differences of various indexes of inter-hospital workload (staff-patient ratio, daily average numbers of outpatients, inpatients, and emergency examinations, and daily average number and positive rate of ultrasonic reports). ANOVA was used to compare the differences of quality control management comprehensive scores among cities and different levels of hospitals.

The survey included 65 third-grade class-A hospitals, 95 third-grade class-B hospitals, 182 second-grade class-A hospitals, 94 second-grade class-B hospitals, and 271 medical institutions of other levels. The differences in the ratio of educational background (χ²=1631.46, P＜0.001), the composition of professional titles (χ²=797.622, P＜0.001), age composition (χ²=113.161, P＜0.001), and the holding rate of doctors' certificate (χ²=11.813, P=0.027) were statistically significant among different levels of hospitals. With the decrease of hospital grade, the proportion of imported equipment decreased gradually, and the proportion of domestic equipment and equipment under 10 years increased gradually. The difference in staff/patient ratio was not statistically significant (third-grade class-A 1.38 (1.04, 2.06), third-grade class-B 1.49 (1.15, 1.90), second-grade class-A 2.00 (1.49, 2.80), second-grade class-B 2.88 (1.90, 5.39), and others 3.99 (2.331, 8.42), H=1.775, P=0.132), though there was an upward trend with the decrease of hospital grade. There were statistically significant differences in the daily average numbers of outpatients, inpatients, and emergency examinations, as well as daily average number of examinations among different hospital grades (H=50.429, 45.232, 34.956, and 73.633, respectively, P＜0.001); the results showed that with the decrease of hospital grade, the trend was downward. The total score of quality control management among different cities and states of medical treatment were statistically significant (F=5.187, P＜0.001). The total score of quality control management among different grades of medical institutions was also statistically significant (F=98.189, P＜0.001).

Because there are differences in quality control management of ultrasonic medicine specialty among different levels of medical institutions in Sichuan Province, the evaluation system based on the hospital level is conducive to carrying out efficient quality control management.