The Role of Ultrasound in Pain Management
Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has a significant role to play in pain management for patients around the world. Dr. Victor Mayoral Rojals, Consultant Anaesthetist and head of the pain unit at the Bellvitge University Hospital, in Barcelona, Spain, discusses the many advantages of ultrasound in his day-to-day practise.
My early experiences of using point-of-care ultrasound in pain management began in 2005, when I worked together with Dr. Xavier Sala-Blanch—a pioneer for using ultrasound in anaesthesia—to organise the first congress of the Catalan Society of Anaesthesia. He…
One Woman’s Mission to End Preventable Infant and Maternal Deaths in Somaliland
Midwife Edna Adan has always dreamt of building her own hospital. After training in London in the 1950s, she qualified as a midwife and returned to her home in Somaliland. Unfortunately, a protracted civil war meant that it was many years before her plan could be realised, and she had to leave her homeland. During the thirty-year civil war, Edna worked for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in many countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and was responsible for training midwives and traditional birth attendants in 22 countries. Edna shared her story of how ultrasound…
From the Front Line in the UK: A Talk with Dr. Justin Kirk-Bayley
For Sonosite’s ongoing series of interviews of physicians working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Medical Officer Diku Mandavia, M.D. interviewed Dr. Justin Kirk-Bayley in Guilford, England about his experiences fighting the coronavirus. You can watch the interview on our COVID-19 Ultrasound Resources site.
Dr. Mandavia:
As you know, we're in the middle of a global pandemic, and we have been trying to get viewpoints from around the world. As the pandemic continues, right now we're about 2.7 million cases around the world and nearly 200,000 deaths. Today we are interviewing…
The Role of Point-of-Care Ultrasound in COVID-19
ICU Management & Practise
Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at FUJIFILM Sonosite
Hospitals all over the world are working to rapidly expand their capacity to treat critically ill patients with COVID-19. To find out how hospitals on the frontlines of the pandemic are coping and the lessons learned that could help other hospitals prepare, FUJIFILM Sonosite’s Chief Medical Officer, Diku Mandavia, interviews Enrico Storti, the ICU Director/Unit Coordinator of the Emergency Department at Maggiore Hospital in Lodi, Italy.
The Role of POCUS in COVID-19,…
From the Front Line in New York: A Talk with Dr. Mangala Narasimhan
Mangala Narasimhan, D.O. is a pulmonary and critical care specialist from Long Island Jewish Medical Centre, in Long Island, New York. Dr. Narasimhan spoke with FUJIFILM Sonosite Chief Medical Officer Diku Mandavia, M.D. about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted her hospital in the heart of New York's outbreak. You can watch the interview on our COVID-19 resource page.
Dr. Mandavia:
Today is March 26, 2020, and unfortunately, we have hit another milestone in the COVID-19 outbreak. Right now we are at over 82,000 cases in the United States, which is more than anywhere else in the…
Discussing the Use of Point-of-Care Ultrasound for Evaluating COVID-19 Patients
DOTMed HealthCare Business News
Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at FUJIFILM Sonosite
Increasingly, hospitals are using point-of-care ultrasound to evaluate patients with COVID-19. To learn more, read the HealthCare Business News interview with Diku Mandavia, Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of FUJIFILM Sonosite, Inc.
POCUS for Evaluating COVID-19, DotMed, Mandavia, March 2020.pdf
From the Frontlines of Italy: A Follow-Up Talk with Emergency Physician Enrico Storti
Dr. Enrico Storti is the Anaesthesia and ICU Director/Unit Coordinator of the Emergency Department at Maggiore Hospital in Lodi, Italy, near Milan. Lodi was hit very hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Dr. Storti is on the frontlines treating patients and helping to contain the outbreak.On March 17, FUJIFILM Sonosite Chief Medical Officer Diku Mandavia, M.D. interviewed Dr. Storti to gain a better understanding of the clinical situation in Italy. That interview can be found on Sonosite’s COVID-19 resource page, or you can read the full transcript. In addition to this interview, we asked Dr.…
Reinventing the ICU for COVID-19
Enrico Storti is the Anaesthesia and ICU Director/Unit Coordinator of the Emergency Department at Maggiore Hospital in Lodi, Italy. Lodi is located near Milan and the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. Lodi was hit very hard by the pandemic, and Dr. Storti is on the frontlines treating patients and helping to contain the outbreak.Dr. FUJIFILM Sonosite Chief Medical Officer Diku Mandavia, M.D. interviewed Dr. Storti to gain a better understanding of the clinical situation in Italy. Storti discussed how his hospital has coped with the sudden surge of patients. He describes…
Ultrasound Plays Vital Role in Training Clinicians in Vietnam
Dr. Megan Thùy Vũ is a global surgery resident at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In addition to the five-year clinical general surgery programme, she has two additional years dedicated to cross-training in other specialties, including point-of-care ultrasound, orthopaedics, and OBGYN. Her professional interests include global paediatric surgery, trauma in combat and austere settings, and global surgical training and educational programme development. Dr. Vũ sent us this report about the International Paediatric Specialists Alliance for the Children of Vietnam (ISPAC-VN) and the…
Sonosite Joins the Fight Against Coronavirus in China
After the outbreak of COVID-19, commonly called coronavirus, Sonosite team members across China have stepped forward to support local clinicians in the diagnosis of coronavirus and to help control the epidemic’s spread. In the fight against coronavirus, ultrasound is a key tool for healthcare workers who are saving lives in this critical period. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) provides rapid, non-invasive real-time scanning, and it is an ideal device for monitoring cardiopulmonary function in critically-ill patients.
Sonosite has sent support staff to the provinces of Hubei, Zhejiang,…
Ultrasound Improves Renal Care at St. Helier Hospital
St Helier Hospital in the London borough of Sutton has one of the largest renal medicine departments in the UK, and relies on FUJIFILM Sonosite point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) systems to improve care and patient safety. Dr Pritpal Virdee, a senior registrar in the department, explained: “We have a very busy renal department offering a wide range of services to people with kidney conditions. We use POCUS throughout the department for both patient assessment and ultrasound-guided interventions–such as line or drain insertions, aspirations, biopsies – performing over 1,000 procedures every year…
POCUS Profile: Dr Raj Tobin
Dr. Raj Tobin, Director & Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology at Max Super Specialty Hospital in Saket, New Delhi has 28 years of experience in anaesthesiology. We interviewed Dr. Tobin to learn about the various clinical applications and the benefits of using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in her routine practise.How long you have been using ultrasound in your practise?My first introduction to ultrasound technology was in 2006 when I attended a regional anaesthesia workshop in New Delhi conducted by Dr. Manoj Karmakar from Chinese University, Hong Kong. It was an amazing…
MSK Pain and Prescribing Opioids
A new study published by the National Institutes of Health’s Journal of Pain reveals that first-time patients suffering from chronic MSK pain are prescribed opioids more often than non-drug treatments. Researchers analysed data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey between 2007 and 2015. The data came from 11,994 visits over the 9-year period.
They found that these patients were prescribed non-opioid drugs 40.2% of the time, with opioids being prescribed 21.5% of the time. In contrast, non-drug treatments (such as counseling, exercise programmes, diet and nutrition advice, and…
Sonosite M-Turbo Gets Plenty of Work in Vanuatu: Part Two
This post is the second part of Dr. Jonathan “Jono” Henry’s report from the Pacific nation of Vanuatu. Be sure to read the first chapter of his remarkable report.Out in the peripheries, supply chains fail frequently: depleted electrolyte reagents, exhausted medication supplies, emptied oxygen tanks, or a single broken part rendering the X-ray machine dormant for months on end. Power outages occur regularly, and disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and cyclones disrupt inter-island transport and retrieval plans. These interdependent systems running at maximum capacity on a small…
Nurse Educator Puts Sonosite iViz Ultrasound to Work in Ethiopia
Nurse educator Abigail Butts MS, RN, CCNS, CCRN is the Communications Project Manager of Three Roots International, a nonprofit that partners with communities in Ethiopia to cultivate community development and economic capacity by empowering families through education, health, and income generating activities. Abigail borrowed a Sonosite iViz through the Global Health Loaner programme. She returned from a mission from Ethiopia and sent us this report.
We partnered with the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia to set up a free mobile medical clinic in a rural area of Ethiopia near our project…
Pioneering Best Practise in Vascular Access with Point-of-Care Ultrasound
Alexandros Mallios is a vascular surgeon at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (IMM) hospital in Paris. For the last four years, he has pioneered the use of ultrasound-guided percutaneous arteriovenous fistula access in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Dr. Mallios explains why he believes point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) should be the standard of care for vascular access in all patients.
During my vascular surgical fellowship at the University of Oklahoma, it became clear to me that using ultrasound was fundamental to providing high quality care in hemodialysis patients. It helps to…
The AI Revolution is Coming in Emergency Care
U.S. News & World Report
Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at FUJIFILM Sonosite
Despite expansion in health insurance coverage, emergency rooms are seeing a larger and ageing population, sicker patients who arrive in immediate danger with more chronic conditions, physician shortages as care is expanded, a need for more expensive technical tools, and an unsustainable trend in costs and expenditures. Partial rescue from these challenges may be coming from the most unlikely of sources: artificial intelligence. These aren't robots, but smart apps and tools that can…
Centre for Medicare & Medicaid Implement New Rules for Shoulder Pain Diagnosis
Beginning on January 1, 2020, the Centre for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new appropriate use criteria (AUC) programme for advanced diagnostic imaging services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. The purpose of the new programme, enacted as part of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) signed into law in 2014, is to address the overutilisation of MRI, CT, nuclear medicine, and PET scans.
Shoulder pain, including suspected rotator cuff injury, is one of eight initial clinical areas CMS had identified to review for overutilisation and ordering patterns that are…
Australian Hospital Uses X-Porte to Identify Bone Fractures
An X-ray machine isn’t always necessary to image a broken bone. In an article published in the Queensland government’s healthcare site Gold Coast Health, Dr. Peter Snelling of Gold Coast University Hospital explains how he uses ultrasound to identify bone fractures in children. Dr. Snelling was granted a $159,000 grant to compare ultrasound and X-ray imaging for buckle fractures. Local Queensland news station Channel 9 also reported on Dr. Snelling’s work. Dr. Snelling uses a Sonosite X-Porte in the video.
Channel 9 report on using ultrasound to find bone fractures (video)
Ultrasound…
Ultrasound guided Regional Anaesthesia - a major component of ERAS: Dr. Ritesh Roy
Ultrasound guided regional anaesthesia (USGRA) in 21st century has set a new standard of perioperative care for a wide range of surgical sub-specialty procedures, including orthopaedic, general, thoracic, colourectal, breast, gynaecologic and cosmetic surgery. The use of Ultrasound guided regional anaesthesia has emerged as an important component of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols, designed to optimise patient co-morbidities before surgery, reduce stress responses after surgery, and promote early physical therapy and return to daily activities. ERAS…