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. …
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. …
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. …
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. What goal-directed applications of point-of-care ultrasound are recognized as being among the most valuable in critical care? In this article, Drs. Gulrukh Zaidi and Seth Koenig of Hofstra University present four areas in which intensivists can apply point-of-care ultrasound to improve outcomes in the critically ill.
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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 required to effectively block a nerve region (10-20 ml versus 30-40 ml using landmark/nerve stimulation techniques). Another benefit is a significant reduction in the length of stay required for patients who undergo shoulder surgery with regional nerve blocks – shoulder decompression used to require at least an overnight stay in the hospital, and is now regarded as an outpatient procedure with minimal in-hospital recovery time needed. Please read Dr. Corcoran's article to learn more.
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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. …
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 an 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. …
Disaster Relief Team Borrows Ultrasound for Flood Victims
During recent floods in the southern Indian province of Kerala, the Kerala Flood Disaster relief team sent by Kasturba Medical College, Manipal borrowed a Sonosite M-Turbo …
POCUS Profile: Dr. Ilyas Tugtekin
Dr. Ilyas Tugtekin, a consultant anesthetist from Ulm University Medical Center in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, travels to Kumasi, Ghana to help establish an ultrasound training center for doctors all over West Africa. …
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] …
Fullfilling a promise to Mosul with Point-Of-Care Ultrasound
Mosul, Iraq’s second city, is slowly rebuilding its healthcare infrastructure after years of war and destruction. Dr Henryk Pich, a consultant anaesthetist and intensive carephysician at the University of Dresden,
Germany, visited the region soon after the fighting had ended, supported by the independent aid organisation CADUS. Moved by the makeshift treatment centres he witnessed in the hospital ruins, he promised the skeleton team of local doctors at the paediatric hospital that he would return, bringing with him much needed equipment and training resources. …
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.
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FUJIFILM Sonosite lends a helping hand to Healing Little Hearts
FUJIFILM Sonosite has once again supplied loan equipment to cardiac teams travelling out to perform life-saving surgery on children in India on behalf of the charity Healing Little Hearts (HLH). HLH was launched as an official registered charity in 2007 to provide free heart surgery to poor children in developing countries. Starting with just occasional trips, the charity now organises regular visits to 19 centres, many in India and, more recently, at sites in Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius and Malaysia. …
Point-of-care ultrasound always to hand for veterinary radiologists
FUJIFILM Sonosite’s robust, easy-to-use point-of-care ultrasound instruments fit perfectly into radiologists’ imaging toolkits for veterinary medicine, allowing straightforward scanning of pets and large animals alike. …
Point-of-care ultrasound: the eyes and hands our forefathers never imagined
Ultrasound is a vital tool for vascular surgeons in the 21st …
Point-of-care ultrasound offers peace of mind for women’s health
Dr Farah Chaudhry, Consultant in Sexual and Reproductive Health for Leeds Sexual Health, West Yorkshire, describes how point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) allows her to give informed and clear assurances to women using long-acting contraception.
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Ultrasound-Guided Nerve Block, an ED Opioid Alternative
Anaesthesiology News
Alexis LaPietra, DO
With the opioid epidemic ever present in US hospitals, emergency physicians working with anaesthesiologists to manage pain in the ED setting are on the front lines of this urgent public health crisis. Alexis LaPietra, DO, a medical director for pain management in the emergency department of St. Joseph’s Healthcare System, shares some key takeaways and lessons learned when developing and implementing a formal programme focused on novel alternatives to opioid prescriptions for pain. The ALTOSM (Alternatives To Opioids) programme uses alternatives such as nitrous oxide, trigger point injections, Lidoderm patches, anti-inflammatory medications, muscle relaxants and ultrasound-guided nerve blocks, whenever possible, for appropriate patients to manage their pain in the emergency department. Read Dr. LaPietra’s article to learn more about how a programme such as ALTOSM can be successful in your hospital.
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Sonosite Ultrasound – a tool to enhance triage for the British Superbikes
FUJIFILM Sonosite has recently become an Official Supplier of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship (BSB), providing point-of-care ultrasound systems to support the first-class care of riders and teams competing in the championship. …
Sonosite; A helping hand for paediatric intensive care
Doctors working in the eight-bed Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid use point-of-care ultrasound extensively to evaluate the condition of critically ill children, and find itessential to their work.Dr José Luis Vázquez Martínez, Head of UCIP at Hospital Ramón y Cajal, with over 25 years’ experience in paediatric intensive care medicine, explained. …
A Letter from Dr. Samuel Abelson
The following is a letter from Dr. Samuel Abelson, an emergency medicine physician who lives in Minneapolis.
Four years ago, Project Medishare began teaching point-of-care ultrasound to the staff at Hospital Bernard Mevs in Port Au Prince. Through the Sonosite Global Health program, we have borrowed multiple loaner machines to use in teaching. …