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…
Sonographer Brings POCUS Education to Guyana
RAD-AID International works to optimize access to medical imaging, radiology services, and nursing care and education in over 30 countries around the world. In a recent medical mission to Guyana, diagnostic registered sonographer Radha Persaud, RDMS, RDCS, RT joined a team that included a certified radiology nurse, two nurse practitioners, a radiologist, a radiology administrator, and a fourth-year medical student. Her team borrowed two Sonosite Edge portable ultrasound machines with transducers from the Global Health Loaner Pool. Radha sent FUJIFILM Sonosite this report detailing her…
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…
Learning to Master Ultrasound-Guided Pain Control in Zambia
Consultant and trainee anesthetists from Surrey, England traveled to Lusaka, Zambia with a point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) system to train Zambian colleagues in ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia. Dr. Madankumar Narayanan describes the educational objectives of the visit and the enthusiastic response from doctors in Zambia, as the team demonstrated the benefits of ultrasound-guided interventions in classroom workshops and on patients.
Responding to a Need in Zambia
Anesthetic trainees in the UK often undertake an "out-of-program" fellowship to developing countries to expand…
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 programme in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in Mbale, as Dr.…
Sonosite Ultrasound Technology in an African Village
Emergency physician Dr. Steven Boutrus was kind enough to write this article for FUJIFILM Sonosite about his use of ultrasound during a medical mission for Grace Dental and Medical Missions.
Boïffo is a rural village in the far north of Benin, West Africa. It is a farming village typical of this region, containing densely clustered, mud-walled houses in the village centre, surrounded by several miles of farmland in every direction. There are no public utilities such as electricity or running water, and the only government presence is the village chief. The region is dotted…
POCUS’ Contribution to Value-Based Medicine
Axis Imaging News
Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at FUJIFILM Sonosite
With healthcare costs continuing to increase and more insurance companies talking to their hospital providers about signing new value-based payment contracts, a new emphasis on total cost of ownership in the evaluation of medical equipment for purchase is occurring. In this article published in AXIS Imaging News by Dr. Diku Mandavia, Chief Medical Officer, FUJIFILM Sonosite, hospitals can learn how to monetize the ongoing training and education, downtime contingency options, and replacement costs…
TEE Simulators Shown to be Effective POCUS Education Tools
Two studies published by the National Institutes of Health show promising results for the use of simulators in the training of emergency physicians (EP) in performing transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). In the study “Focused transesophageal echocardiography for emergency physicians—description and results from simulation training of a structured four-view examination”, a post-workshop survey of a convenience sample of 14 EPs revealed that all study participants were “satisfied” or “extremely satisfied” with the educational session. 12 of the EPs (85.7 %) participants reported feeling…
Taking the Clinic to the Mountain
Dr. Philippe Mahiou practises anaesthesia in the Grenoble area of France, splitting his time between a private clinic and working as a helicopter doctor attending mountaineering accidents. As part of his work, Dr. Mahiou routinely uses ultrasound, and understands the importance of the technology for both guiding anaesthesia in the operating room and assessing patients in the field.Around 80% of my work is at the Clinic des Cèdres, a private clinic near Grenoble, where approximately 7,000 to 8,000 trauma and orthopaedic procedures are performed every year. I frequently use ultrasound to guide…
In Case of Emergency, Use POCUS
Time is of the essence in the emergency department, where a prompt diagnosis can litreally mean the difference between life and death.In this environment, access to point-of-care ultrasound is essential, providing vital information to help clinicians rapidly determine the most appropriate course of action for emergency patients. Dr. Martin Langer, clinical lead for emergency medicine at the Evangelisches Krankenhaus Unna, describes the importance of ultrasound in his department.The Evangelisches Krankenhaus Unna is a 324-bed, district hospital in Germany that includes a certified stroke unit…
Evaluating the Benefits of Point-of-Care Ultrasound for Geriatric Medicine
Dr. Nicolas Azulay is a general medicine doctor specializing in scheduled and emergency ultrasound examinations at the University Hospitals of Nice, France, where he works at the Pasteur II and Cimiez hospitals. As part of the clinical research program GERICARE, he recently studied the impact of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) assessment of patients admitted to the short-stay geriatric unit at Cimiez hospital.
I graduated in general medicine but, after six years in practice, I realized that I was more attracted to diagnostic exploration techniques, where I can investigate the anatomy and…
POCUS Profile: Dr. T. Sivashanmugam
Dr. T. Sivashanmugam MD, DNB in Anaesthesiology, PDCC, FRCP is a Professor in Anaesthesiology at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Research Institute, a 1500-bed tertiary care teaching university hospital at Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, India. He has more than ten years’ experience in practicing ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia (USGRA). For the last five years, Dr. Sivashanmugam teaches and trains residents in anaesthesiology.He initially started using Sonosite MicroMaxx ultrasound machine in 2009, and then shifted to NanoMaxx, M-Turbo, EDGE II, and eventually, X-Porte systems. Dr.…
Addressing Addiction and Pain Management in Our Nation’s Military and Veteran Populations
Over the last two years, the U.S. Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force studied how pain is treated in the military and veteran populations to make recommendations to improve the treatment of acute and chronic pain. The Task Force issued its report earlier this summer, “Pain Management Best Practises: Updates, Gaps, Inconsistencies, and Recommendations,” which highlights the barriers to optimal pain care and the reduction of opioid misuse among veterans and military personnel.The Task Force report discusses the challenges in treating pain that are specific to the military and…
Emergency Physician Brings Ultrasound to Rural Guatemala
Emergency physician Dr. Elijah Katz has worked with Sonosite ultrasound machines for several clinical and teaching missions around the world. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is a large part of Dr. Katz’s practise both at home and abroad, and he currently serves as a Fellow in Combined Clinical Ultrasound and Global Health in the Department of Emergency Medicine at University of Texas, San Antonio. His most recent medical trip was the 2019 ¡Vamos Guatemala! mission, a biannual project with the Long School of Medicine at UT San Antonio. Dr. Katz was one of four supervising doctors from UT San…
Medical Mission to Kenya Introduces High School Students to Ultrasound
Dr. Martin Kelly is an attending physician in the Emergency Medicine Residency Program at Darnall Army Medical Center, Fort Hood, Texas. He has been involved in mission trips for 15 years, most of them in conjunction with Maranatha Volunteers International located in Sacramento, California. Dr. Kelly was kind enough to write a report about this nonprofit and its collaboration with Sonosite.
Maranatha Volunteers International is a non-profit Christian organization with the primary focus of organizing volunteers to build churches and schools in developing nations. They sponsor many short…
Charitable Medical Mission Uses Ultrasound for Maternal Care in Zambia
Australian nonprofit Globalinks Medical Foundation is dedicated to providing healthcare to global communities in remote locations where access to healthcare services is limited. Globalinks was founded by Dr. Peter Locke and his wife Carolyn following their experiences volunteering overseas, where they witnessed a prevalence of of illness, disease, and child mortality rates, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
Globalinks works with local health staff, providing much needed supplies and equipment and planning with local health ministries to achieve sustainable progress towards positive health…
U.S. Government Report Provides Recommendations and Opportunities during National Pain Management Month
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force issued the report “Pain Management Best Practises: Updates, Gaps, Inconsistencies, and Recommendations.” The U.S. Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force (Task Force) was created under the 2016 Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) to address the treatment of acute and chronic pain that has driven the nation’s opioid epidemic. The report’s release is particularly timely since September is National Pain Management Month, when policymakers and stakeholders across the healthcare…
Spreading POCUS across Northern Spain
The rapid scanning and dynamic imaging capabilities offered by point-of-care ultrasound make it an invaluable tool for emergency medicine. Dr. Enrique Ortiz Villacian (from Emergency Services at Donostia University Hospital in San Sebastián) and Dr. Juajo Zafra Sanchez (from the Emergency Unit at San Eloy Hospital in Barakaldo) discussed the role ultrasound plays in their respective emergency departments, as well as their formation of an ultrasound training programme SonoNorte for clinicians across northern Spain and further afield.The emergency department at Donostia University Hospital was…
The Value of Ultrasound for Nephrology
Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) systems are becoming a common sight in nephrology departments and renal dialysis clinics, helping clinical staff to evaluate and effectively access the vasculature of dialysis patients. Dr. Jean-Yves Bosc, a nephrologist and vascular doctor working at the nonprofit private health establishment AIDER SANTÉ in the South of France, has been a champion of ultrasound for over a decade. He explained the benefits of this technology as part of the overall care package for patients with kidney disease.
AIDER SANTÉ specializes in nephrology and renal replacement…