New Government Recommendations Advance Interventional Approaches to Improve Pain Management
With the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issuing a Request for Information on ways to address the treatment of acute and chronic pain, and the treatment of substance use disorders including opioid use disorder, it is an appropriate time to focus on new recommendations contained in a report issued by the U.S. Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force. These recommendations are aimed at increasing access to and greater use of interventional procedures for perioperative pain control. Interventional procedures include various non-opioid medications, ultrasound-…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Frances Chow
Anesthesiologist Dr. Frances Chow works to bring ultrasound-guided nerve blocks to British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, BC, Canada. British Columbia Cancer Agency has among the best cancer outcomes in the world, including highest of the G7 countries for childhood leukemia, and second highest survival rates across 67 countries for prostate and breast cancer.[1]
BC Cancer covers the entire spectrum of cancer care, from prevention and screening to diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. They operate six regional cancer centers and are dedicated to finding the causes of cancer, and…
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 practise 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…
Pain Management Alternatives for Women
Gender differences based on culturally defined roles create unique issues for women with respect to pain and opioid addiction and misuse. A report issued earlier this summer by the U.S. Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force, “Pain Management Best Practises: Updates, Gaps, Inconsistencies, and Recommendations”, focuses on issues related to women as part of its extensive review of how acute and chronic pain are treated in this country.
The Task Force report indicates that women are more likely than men to misuse prescription opioids. Furthermore, from 1999 to 2010, the…
Financial Impact of ERAS Programme
OR Today Magazine
Philip Corvo, MD, MA, FACS, and Wesley Knauft, MD
Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS)
is a paradigm shift in perioperative care that can benefit both hospitals and their patients. In this article published in OR Today by Philip Corvo, MD, MA, FACS, and Wesley Knauft, MD, they share a case study about their experience at Saint Mary’s Hospital, Trinity Health Of New England, a 347-bed acute care community teaching hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut, regarding the clinical and financial benefits of an ERAS programme that includes Ultrasound Guided Regional Anaesthesia (…
Medical Device Warranties: Fine Print, Major Total Cost Implications
Becker's Hospital CFO Report
Rich Fabian, Chief Operation Officer, FUJIFILM Sonosite
Most of us think of warranties as a way to save money because they reduce the possibility of spending money in the future. This article from FUJIFILM Sonosite’s Chief Operating Officer, Rich Fabian, outlines that not all warranties are created equal and this could have implications for the total cost of owning an ultrasound system over its lifetime. The article shares how the fine print of a warranty document can matter, particularly as it relates to what items are expected from the warranty. In the case of…
POCUS Goes Airborne for Helicopter Rescue
Emergency doctor Dr. Didier Moens is in charge of rescue missions in the Centre Médical Héliporté (CMH) of Bra sur Lienne, near Liège in Belgium. He believes access to point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) on emergency helicopters is now essential for improving the care of critically ill patients:
“I’ve worked in emergency medicine for over 20 years, specialising in pre-hospital care. Our helicopter rescues allow us to reach accidents and emergencies swiftly, and transport patients quickly to the nearest adequate hospital—whether that’s from patients’ homes or workplaces, the scene of a road…
A Time to Reflect: Sonosite PX Celebrates a Year to Remember
Anniversaries are times to celebrate, but also times to reflect. At FUJIFILM Sonosite, we’re thrilled to recognise the one-year anniversary of the launch of Sonosite PX, our next generation point-of-care ultrasound system (POCUS) with the most advanced image clarity ever seen in a Sonosite system.As we mark the one-year milestone of bringing Sonosite PX to market, we want to reflect on just a few of the significant achievements that our robust POCUS system is credited with during this past year.For starters, Sonosite PX made its entrance during one of the most challenging times for healthcare…
Ultrasound Care for Endangered Species of Warty Pig [Video]
Veterinary patients can be such pigs. At the Pittsburgh Zoo, they are occasionally lethargic, critically endangered warty pigs. One of the Zoo’s three resident Visayan pigs, Dakila, who is 8 years old, is one such patient. Her veterinary care team, led by Dr. Ginger Sturgeon, pays particular attention to Dakila’s care.Native to the Philippines, Dakila has condition called dilated cardiomyopathy, which makes her lethargic (and originally contributed to a less-than-pig-perfect appearance). According to Dr. Sturgeon, Dakila can live a full, healthy life at the Zoo, but…
User Stories: Spreading Point-of-Care Ultrasound to the Philippines
West Virginia University Department of Emergency Medicine Ultrasound fellow, Kristine S. Robinson, M.D. is taking Point of Care Ultrasound (PoCUS) to the international level by residing in Metro Manila, Philippines for a month, equipped with a Sonosite Edge machine from Sonosite’s Global Health Programme. Dr. Robinson volunteered her time and expertise as a visiting physician at St. Luke’s Medical Centre – Quezon City (SLMC-QC), spending time with their Emergency Department residents and staff to teach instructive and hands-on sessions, and accompany residents on scanning shifts. …
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…
POCUS for Emergency Medicine Helps Save Lives
Emergency physicians must make life-saving decisions as quickly as possible to choose the correct treatment and direct patients to an appropriate hospital. Emergency department chief Dr. Sylvain Benenati and emergency doctor Dr. David Sapir, both from Melun Hospital in France, discuss how the dynamic nature of point-of-care ultrasound makes it invaluable in these busy environments.
POCUS on the Road
Melun Hospital is located about 40 kilometers south of Paris. It is the headquarters of the urgent medical aid service (SAMU) for Seine et Marne—the biggest department in the Paris area—as…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Nathaniel Meuser-Herr
Pneumonia is a major cause of childhood mortality and morbidity globally – particularly in resource-poor environments – and diagnosis of pneumonia can be complex. The current gold standard diagnostic technique is a chest X-ray, looking for the presence or absence of areas of consolidation on the lungs. However X-ray facilities are not always available in remote locations.
Dr. Nathaniel Meuser-Herr led a University of Minnesota research project to investigate the potential of point-of-care ultrasound as an alternative tool for the diagnosis of pneumonia in paediatric patients in Uganda, and…
Consider All Ultrasound Machine Costs of Ownership
When making a high investment in medical equipment it is important not only to compare the price and quality of each product, in these cases it begins to be necessary to analyse the total cost of ownership (TCO) during the useful life of the equipment, since it could happen that the indirect costs exceed the sale price, plus all the additional problems that can even lead to damage to the reputation of the hospital.In recent medical meetings, the TCO and the indirect costs that constitute it are being debated. Some of these costs to consider are technical service and repairs, although software…
Dr. David Chaparro - Bringing clarity in the most difficult environments
Dr. David Chaparro, in addition to working as an emergency doctor at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid, also participates in humanitarian aid projects in some of the poorest countries in the world, treating patients, training other professionals in the use of bedside ultrasound (POCUS), and demonstrating how it improves patient care in the most difficult settings:
“I was lucky to discover ultrasound quite early in my career, now I use it every day in my daily work. It is a fundamental tool that complements the anamnesis and the physical examination, guiding the request for…
Ready to Face the Pandemic: Sonosite PX Launches in a Moment of Crisis
This July, FUJIFILM Sonosite launched Sonosite PX, its newest ultrasound system, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Diku Mandavia, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of FUJIFILM Sonosite, sat down with sonographer and Sonosite’s Director of Marketing Development Jodi Miller to discuss how Sonosite’s newest ultrasound system can help frontline health care workers combat the pandemic and why Sonosite PX is uniquely suited for this global health crisis.
Jodi Miller:
Some people may be asking, “Why launch Sonosite PX now, in the middle of a global pandemic?” Is there anything specific…
Setting Up a Point-of-Care Ultrasound Programme in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Drawing on Dr. Jae Kim’s experience with implementing and leading POCUS programmes in two U.S. children’s hospitals, this article provides a five-step roadmap to adoption of this imaging modality to improve the safety and quality of care in the NICU. Physician training, the most active uses, and opportunities for POCUS in neonatal medicine and case examples are discussed. The article also provides guidance on selecting a point-of-care ultrasound system for neonatology.
ICUManagement_NeonatalPOCUS_Jan2021.pdf
Solving revenue capture for POCUS – The importance of workflow management
HealthCare Business News sat down with Dr. John Hipskind, ultrasound GME director and ultrasound fellowship director at Kaweah Delta Medical Centre, one of the first sites to use Sonosite Synchronicity™ workflow manager. Dr. Hipskind discusses the advantages of point-of-care ultrasound, from reducing phantom scans, to easing credentialing and QA processes, and improving revenue at his facility.
DotMed-QA-POCUS-1220.pdf
POCUS Profile: Dr. Pradeep Suryawanshi
Dr. Pradeep Suryawanshi, Professor & Head, Department of Neonatology at BVU Medical College, Pune, India has 15 years of experience in field of neonatology. He is the first person to commence point-of-care neonatal ultrasound and neonatal functional echocardiography courses in India. He recently shared his views about how the use of point-of-care ultrasound has made a significant impact in his routine clinical practise.Back in 2007, was the first time I ever handled the Sonosite ultrasound system in India and that was like magic embracing me and enlightening me with a confirmation of all…
Ultrasound Critical for Women's Health in Sierra Leone
The mission of Partners in Health (PIH) is to provide a preferential option for the underprivileged in health care. By establishing long-term relationships with sister organisations, PIH strives to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need of them.
PIH has been working in Sierra Leone since 2014, upon an invitation from the government to help end West Africa’s historic Ebola epidemic. While leading efforts to treat Ebola patients and contain the spread, PIH made a long-term commitment to support the government in revitalizing the country’s public health sector and…