New Study: POCUS Saves Time, Money, in Family Practice
According to a systematic review recently published in Annals of Family Medicine, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) can reduce costs and improve diagnostic abilities in family medicine and other clinical settings.
In an article on Healio Primary Care Today, the study's author, Camilla Aakjær Andersen, MD, of Aalborg University Fyrkildevej in Denmark, explained that POCUS "empowers the primary care physician by providing more diagnostic information or increasing precision in clinical procedures."
In addition to high specificity and sensitivity, Andersen says that the 51 studies…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Jennifer Hanko
Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is widely used in nephrology for guiding the creation of fistulas and informing decisions on their viability and performance for dialysis. Dr. Jennifer Hanko is a consultant nephrologist at Belfast City Hospital, a 900-bed modern university teaching hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Here, she explains the impact of POCUS on her clinical practice and describes the benefits, for both staff and patients, of using POCUS.I originally learned to use ultrasound for vascular mapping and arteriovenous (AV) fistula assessment during a fellowship in…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Justin Kirk-Bayley
Point-of-care ultrasound systems play an important role in the treatment of complicated medical cases at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford, as consultant intensivist and anaesthetist Dr. Justin Kirk-Bayley explained.
The Royal Surrey County Hospital is a 527-bed general hospital and a specialist tertiary centre for cancer, oral and maxillofacial surgery and pathology. As a major cancer centre, the hospital treats some very difficult and complicated patients, and so has a larger than average 28-bed intensive care unit (ICU). The hospital is also a national leader…
In-flight Ultrasound Changes Medical Outcome
STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service) Air Ambulance is a non-profit emergency air transport organization* that serves rural communities in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.
Funded by donations from private individuals, STARS was founded by Dr. Gregory Powell, who had seen the difference that helicopter transport could make in patient outcomes as an observer in a M.A.S.H. unit during the Vietnam War.
In May of 2017, patient Ron Diller collapsed upon arrival at his local hospital. STARS was dispatched to transport Diller by helicopter to the nearest hospital.
During transport, an…
Point-of-Care Ultrasound on Mt. Everest
Dr. Luanne Freer is, to put it mildly, comfortable with being uncomfortable.A trained emergency medicine physician who grew up in the Washington DC area, Dr. Freer serves as medical director of Yellowstone National Park through Medcor Inc. When she’s not busy with her full-time job, or volunteering to save lives in Sierra Leone’s Ebola outbreak, you might find her working at the emergency clinic that she founded, Everest Base Camp Medical Clinic (Everest ER).During the annual climbing season, which usually runs from April through May, Dr. Freer collaborates with Nepali and foreign doctors;…
Teaching USGRA in Papua New Guinea
An advocate for the expansion of the use of point-of-care ultrasound, Dr. Yasmin Endlich is an anesthesiologist who practices medicine in Australia and regularly travels to Papua New Guinea to provide medical training to local physicians. Here, she explains why nerve blocks are a crucial tool in a rural anesthetist’s arsenal:Papua New Guinea, a country of over 8 million people, is looked after by less than 30 anesthetists, half of whom are still in training. Not coincidentally, I have actually met every anesthetist in Papua New Guinea.This year, the 54th Medical Symposium was held in…
Doctors Without Borders: Using Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Sudan
Dr. Achai Bulabek is a clinical officer with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). At age 28, she is currently serving a region between Sudan and South Sudan (her native country). Her hospital recently adopted a point-of-care ultrasound system (POCUS) that is now frequently used to diagnose patient trauma and guide needle-based procedures such as paracentesis and thoracentesis.
In a blogpost on the MSF website, Dr. Bulabek describes several cases in which the use of POCUS helped diagnose and treat patients quickly and effectively.
"Since we started using the new ultrasound, something has…
Point-Of-Care Ultrasound Helps Make Regional Anesthesia Quicker And Safer
Ultrasound-guidance has proven invaluable for the regional neurosurgical center at the Salford Royal Hospital outside Manchester, England. In addition to helping to improve patient safety, ultrasound is increasingly being used to guide regional anesthesia, offering a variety of benefits.Jim Corcoran, consultant neuroanesthetist and clinical director for perioperative care at the Salford Royal, says that ultrasound-guidance also allows anesthetists to reduce the amount of anesthetic required to effectively block a nerve region (10-20 ml versus 30-40 ml using landmark/nerve stimulation…
Harvard Study Finds Significant Cost Savings with POCUS Use
According to a study conducted by Harvard researchers, emergency physicians in community-hospital settings that chose to use diagnostic point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in patient care saved patients, insurance companies, and hospitals significant sums of money, even if the results of an ultrasound did not alter a care path.
Published online Dec. 28 in the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, the 3-month study involved ER physicians at 213-bed Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The team used data from Medicare fee Schedules published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid…
Sonosite Ultrasound Lends Help to Humanitarian Efforts in Mosul, Iraq
Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities, is slowly rebuilding its healthcare infrastructure after years of war. Dr. Henryk Pich is doing his part to help.
As a young man, Dr. Henryk Pich spent time travelling in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, he feels a personal connection to the region and, after seeing the devastation caused by years of war to cities such as Mosul, wanted to offer whatever help he could. Moved by the makeshift treatment centers he witnessed in the hospital ruins, he promised the skeleton team of local doctors at the pediatric hospital that he would return, bringing with…
Benefits of Ultrasound-Guided Peripheral Nerve Block on Enhanced Recovery in Outpatient Total Knee Arthroplasty
Becker's Hospital Review
Nishant Shah, MD
During the year 2030, the number of Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) surgeries in the U.S. is projected to surpass 1.28 million. A recent study suggests that outpatient TKA can provide a cost savings of approximately $8,527 per patient (as compared to the standard length of stay group). Outpatient TKA also provides faster recovery time and fewer required opioid prescriptions through the use of targeted ultrasound-guided nerve blocks. Dr. Nishant Shah heads the outpatient total joint replacement program at Midwest Anesthesia Partners. In this article,…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Fidel Fernandez
Ultrasound is a vital tool for vascular surgeons in the 21st century. In the following essay, Dr. Fidel Fernández Quesada, a sixth-generation vascular surgeon and associate professor at the University of Granada, Spain, describes the difference that ultrasound has made to his clinical practice, and reflects on what his forefathers would have made of such technological advancement."I have worked in the field of angiology and vascular surgery for 25 years, and currently practice both at the San Cecilio University Hospital in Granada and privately. I am also the current president of the…
Sonosite and Bridge To Health: POCUS Training in Uganda
To celebrate 20 years of helping clinicians bring ultrasound to the point of care, Sonosite partnered with Canadian NGO Bridge To Health and Uganda's Kigezi Healthcare Foundation (KIHEFO) to help them train Ugandan medical officers on how to diagnose pediatric pneumonia and scan breast masses to rule out cancer.As Bridge To Health's Founder and Chair Dr. William Cherniak puts it, "Bridge To Health's principle is partnership. That's what makes us so different than other global health programs. "With that philosophy of partnership in mind, Bridge to Health worked with Sonosite's Global…
20 Years of Sonosite: Bringing Ultrasound to the Forefront of Global Health
According to the World Health Organization, much of the world’s population has no access to ultrasound imaging. From the jungles of Panama to the mountains of Nepal, the clinicians that are a part of our Global Health Program and help bring ultrasound to the point of patient care are our greatest source of inspiration. As we celebrate 20 years of Sonosite ultrasound this year we're taking a look back at some of the most critical and complex global health cases from the past two decades. Fulfilling a Promise To Iraq with Point-of-Care UltrasoundMosul, Iraq’s second largest city…
Ultrasound Advances Research and Education in Uganda
Emergency physician Jessica Schmidt, MD, MPH, assistant professor at the School of Medicine and Public Health at University of Wisconsin, Madison, recently returned from a very productive visit to Uganda. Physicians at the University of Wisconsin Madison have partnered with physicians at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital and the Mbale Clinical Research Institute (MCRI), along with Atlas International, an NGO dedicated to improving health for children in Eastern Africa. The project is focused on creating a training and research program in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in Mbale, as Dr.…
Portable Ultrasound: Revolutionizing Critical Care
Sonosite-portable-ultrasound.png The increased adoption of portable ultrasound has transformed critical care by helping physicians make precise bedside diagnoses in critically ill patients.Safe, accurate, non-invasive, and affordable, point-of care-ultrasound is gaining popularity over other imaging modalities (like X-ray) as it does not expose patients to ionising radiations.Since it is difficult to move unstable/subconscious patients with mechanical ventilation and other specialised intensive support to other areas of the hospitals (for ultrasound/MRI/CT imaging), it is…
A Return to Mosul: Sonosite Ultrasound Delivered to Al Khansaa Hospital
Fulfilling a Promise to Mosul’s Premier Hospital for Women and Children
Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, is slowly rebuilding its healthcare infrastructure after years of war and destruction.
Dr. Henryk Pich spent time travelling in the Middle East as a young man. Not surprisingly, he feels a personal connection to the region and, after seeing the devastation caused by years of war to cities such as Mosul, wanted to offer whatever help he could. Moved by the makeshift treatment centers he witnessed in the hospital ruins, he promised the skeleton team of local doctors at the pediatric…
Point-of-Care Ultrasonography in Critical Care
ICU Management & Practice
Dr. Gulrukh Zaidi, MD and Prof. Seth Koenig, MD
Physicians have used ultrasonography for more than half a century to aid diagnoses and guide procedures, but the advent of portable ultrasound systems that physicians can use to see and assess physiological function firsthand, and in real time, has revolutionized patient care in the intensive care unit. This shift from traditional ultrasound, in which a technician and/or consulting radiologist obtains and interprets patient ultrasound images, reduces dissociation in patient care and shortens time-to-diagnosis.…
Point-of-Care Ultrasound Helps Make Regional Anaesthesia Quicker and Safer, and Improves Patient Comfort
Clinical Services Journal
Dr. Jim Corcoran, Clinical Director Perioperative Care, Salford Royal Hospital
Ultrasound guidance has proven invaluable for the regional neurosurgical center at the Salford Royal Hospital, outside Manchester, England. In addition to helping to improve patient safety, ultrasound is increasingly being used to guide regional anesthesia, offering a variety of benefits. Jim Corcoran, consultant neuroanesthetist and clinical director for perioperative care at the Salford Royal, says that ultrasound guidance also allows anesthetists to reduce the amount of anesthetic…
Join the Redesigned Sonosite Institute Today!
Have you ever considered using point-of-care ultrasound but didn’t know where to begin?FUJIFILM Sonosite customers have a powerful tool to help them ramp up their scanning skills, making the POCUS learning curve a lot less steep.We’re excited to announce the redesign of Sonosite Institute, our online education portal for POCUS that’s only for Sonosite customers. More good news? Sonosite Institute membership is included in the purchase of a Sonosite ultrasound system.You already know that using ultrasound at the point of care can improve patient care paths and outcomes. Now, access the tools…