POCUS in Emergency Medicine: Dispatches from Iraqi Kurdistan

Sonosite blog: The Indispensable Role of Ultrasound in Iraq
Medical imageing offers life-saving insights into patient health—and perhaps no other imageing modality is more versatile and mobile than point-of-care ultrasound. In a fascinating dispatch from the Kurdish city of Duhok in northern Iraq, Dr. Christine Butts describes how point-of-care ultrasound is an indispensable tool for emergency physicians, especially when patients arrive unconscious and with no indication of an obvious malady. …

POCUS in Pre-hospital Settings: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Sonosite blog: POCUS for Pre-Hospital Care
Time is of the essence in an emergency situation, and may be the difference between life and death.  Ambulance crews on the front line must decide rapidly whether or not a patient is suffering from a life-threatening condition requiring specialist treatment, and point-of-care ultrasound can provide vital guidance.  …

Sonosite Sells 100,000th Ultrasound System

Sonosite sells it's 100,000 system
FUJIFILM Sonosite is delighted to announce that we have recently sold our 100,000th system. A Sonosite X-Porte, our premier kiosk ultrasound system, was delivered to a hospital in California in early October. “We are thrilled to be able to provide the X-Porte as our 100,000th system to one of our valued customers,” said Rich Fabian, FUJIFILM Sonosite’s COO, who announced the recipient of the 100,000th point-of-care ultrasound system at an employee Town Hall meeting at FUJIFILM Sonosite’s Bothell headquarters on October 19th.  …

Ultrasound Guidelines for Paediatric Vascular Access

Sonosite blog: POCUS Guidelines for Pediatric Access
More than five million central venous catheter (CVC) lines are placed in hospitals each year, making it one of the most common invasive emergency room procedures. …

9 Reasons Ultrasound is Invaluable for Nephrologists

Sonosite blog: 9 Reasons Ultrasound is Invaluable for Nephrologists
Point-of-care ultrasound is fast becoming a key instrumental technique in nephrology , supporting diagnostics and improving delivery of renal replacement therapy and subsequent vascular monitoring. …

User Stories: Spreading Point-of-Care Ultrasound Hospital-Wide

X-Porte
What departments are the heaviest users of point-of-care ultrasound in an American-based hospital?The answer varies from hospital to hospital, but we usually see Emergency Medicine, Cardiology, Critical Care and Anaesthesiology rounding out the heavyweight users of bedside ultrasound. …

Clinical Chest Professionals, Here's Our Guide to CHEST2016

Has it really been a year already? We’re back in LA this week for another edition of CHEST, the premier clinical event for chest medicine in the U.S. We love CHEST because the show connects a global community around not just networking and new technology, but brings together new research, instruction and interactive simulations too. If you’re a veteran of CHEST you probably know your way around the show. If you haven’t been before or need a refresher, here’s our quick “Guide to CHEST2016.”   …

Integrating Ultrasound Services Into Your Practise - Five Reasons December 2016 Could Be The Right Time

Becker's Hospital Review Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA Since the election there have been many articles written discussing the future of the Affordable Care Act under a President-Elect Trump Administration and a Republican Congress. It is important that physicians and office administrators understand the real impact by reading this article. …

Beyond the Block: Why Would an Anaesthesiologist Use Ultrasound?

Increasingly, anaesthesiologists have been using ultrasound guidance to help visualise soft tissue anatomy and nerve location while performing regional nerve blocks. Correct placement of local anaesthetics lead to long lasting pain management and enhanced recovery times. But beyond the block, how does ultrasound help anaesthesiologists do their jobs? The answer has a lot to do with the changing practise of medicine. …

Beyond the Block: Why Would an Anaesthesiologist Use Ultrasound?

 Increasingly, anesthesiologists have been using ultrasound guidance to help visualize soft tissue anatomy and nerve location while performing regional nerve blocks. Correct placement of local anesthetics lead to long lasting pain management and enhanced
Increasingly, anaesthesiologists have been using ultrasound guidance to help visualise soft tissue anatomy and nerve location while performing regional nerve blocks. Correct placement of local anaesthetics lead to long lasting pain management and enhanced recovery times. But beyond the block, how does ultrasound help anaesthesiologists do their jobs? The answer has a lot to do with the changing practise of medicine. …

User Stories: Point-of-Care Ultrasound Aids Elephant Conservation in Vietnam

User Stories
Vietnam’s wild elephant population has dropped from over 2,000 animals to less than 100 in 20 years, making the country’s 60 or so captive elephants vital to preserving the genetic lines of this critically endangered species. …

Reducing The Opioid Epidemic with POC Ultrasound

Every day, 91 Americans die from opioid (prescription drugs or heroin) overdoses. This is the worst drug epidemic in the history of the United States. How can emergency physicians help patients manage pain without accidentally getting them addicted to prescription opioids? …

User Stories: St. Joseph's Reduces Time and Cost with POCUS Vascular Access

If you had to choose between inserting a PICC line (40-45 minutes) and inserting a PIV with ultrasound guidance (5-10 minutes), which would you choose to perform? What if your patient weighed less than 5 lbs? Or more than 500? When you’re working with some of the smallest, most vulnerable patients, every single needle stick matters more than ever. Whether injecting critical medicine or drawing blood, St. Joseph’s Healthcare System in Paterson, New Jersey, strives to minimize patient pain during needle insertion. …

2017 - The Year For Expansion In Ultrasound-Guided Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures

HealthCare Business News Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA With the future of the Affordable Care Act in flux, this may be a time for healthcare providers to evaluate their practises and see how they provide more for their patients and communities. By expanding service offerings, healthcare providers can attract more patients and elevate their patient's level of satisfaction. Read this article to find out how 2017 may be the year for expansion of ultrasound-guided surgical procedures using ultrasound guided breast biopsies as an example. …

The Range of POCUS: Emergency Rooms to Vascular Access to Intensive Care Training

Range of POCUS
Did you know that Sonosite’s first mission was to create an ultrasound machine that could be carried into battle? The concept was simple: Get treatment to a trauma victim by giving a frontline clinician an ultrasound machine that could be brought to the patient’s side. Now point-of-care ultrasound is used around the world for an ever growing variety of clinical applications and procedures. Here's three user stories of how Sonosite systems have helped clinicians expand the range of what's possible using portable ultrasound.  …

Ultrasound and Changes in Value-Based Care - Part 1

Uncertainty – especially in economics, government, or healthcare - can be hard to handle. Combine a little bit of uncertainty in Washington D.C. and the medical community and you’ll have a window into 2017, a time when the future of the Affordable Health Care Act and the health sector is in flux. Is there a silver lining here? We believe so. 2017 presents an opportunity for healthcare providers to evaluate how technologies like ultrasound can solve their challenges. …

CMS Implements AUC Requirements for Advanced Imaging Services

HealthCare Business News Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA The Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have finalised the clinical areas that will be part of the new Appropriate Use Criteria requirements for the ordering of MRI, CT, PET and Nuclear Cardiology studies starting January 1, 2018. CMS has selected shoulder pain, including suspected rotator cuff injury, as one of the priority clinical areas. To learn more about these new requirements so that your practise can be prepared on January 1, 2018, please read the following article in the most recent issue of DotMed at Healthcare Business News. …

Ultrasound and Changes in Value-Based Care

Uncertainty – especially in economics, government, or healthcare - can be hard to handle. Combine a little bit of uncertainty in Washington D.C. and the medical community and you’ll have a window into 2017, a time when the future of the Affordable Health Care Act and the health sector is in flux. …

Sonosite Edge II at the 2017 Gaes Titan Desert Race

Sonosite Edge II at the Gaes Titan Desert in 2017
The Gaes Titan Desert by Garmin is a 6-day endurance bike race over mountain terrain; the 2017 edition takes place in Morocco. From April 30-May 5, the Titan Desert saw over 463 top-level mountain bikers cover 380 miles of unyielding desert in gruelling conditions. …

Treating Acute Pain Without Opioids

For the past 20-odd years in the United States, traumatic and acute conditions have often been treated in the Emergency Room using opioid drugs. Now, with the effects of a nationwide opioid addiction crisis becoming increasingly dire, hospitals and trauma centres are looking for new ways to treat pain without prescribing addictive opioid painkillers. …