Point-of-care ultrasound helps make regional anaesthesia quicker and safer, and improves patient comfort

Ultrasound guidance has proven invaluable for the regional neurosurgical centre at the Salford Royal Hospital, helping to improve safety, save time and enhance the patient experience. Dr. Jim Corcoran, consultant neuroanaesthetist and clinical director for perioperative care at the hospital, explained.  

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.

POCUS Profile: Dr. Matthew J. Reed

Dr Matthew Reed

Point-of-care ultrasound plays an important role in the emergency sector, enabling hospital clinicians and paramedics responding to an urgent call for medical assistance to assess a patient’s condition. Dr Matthew Reed, an Emergency Medicine consultant at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, explains how ultrasound contributes to the management of cardiac arrest:

Point-of-care ultrasound transforms sports and exercise medicine in Jersey

Sportsmen and women on the Channel Island of Jersey are benefitting from the introduction of point-of-care ultrasound. Dr Adam Garnett, a sports and exercise medicine consultant at the Jersey Sports Medicine Clinic, explained: “My interest in sports and exercise medicine started 20 years ago when, as a GP in Bath, I got involved with the rugby club.

Global Health: Ultrasound Expands Access and Improves Maternal Care

Sonosite mobile ultrasound project

Every day, 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. 99% live in rural areas. Many of them could be prevented with proper maternal care including ultrasound imageing during their pregnancy and delivering in a medical clinic. Of those deaths, 40% are due to injuries or conditions related to placenta complications - and the only way to detect abnormal placenta challenges is through an ultrasound exam.

Anesthesia Ultrasound for Perioperative Care - Beyond the Block

Anesthesia Ultrasound for Perioperative Care

The role of the anesthesiologist is evolving to include perioperative care

With hospitals seeking innovative ways to streamline patient care and improve outcomes, anesthesiologists are increasingly expected to provide patient care beyond general anesthesia and nerve blocks. But beyond the block, how does perioperative ultrasound help anesthesiologists do their jobs?

The answer has a lot to do with the changing practice of medicine.

3 Steps to Getting Buy-In For Your Ultrasound Programme

How To Get Buy-In For Your Bedside Ultrasound Program

Anyone who has ever tried to change the way medicine is practised knows that inertia makes it difficult to get buy-in from colleagues and administrators. Introducing a relatively familiar technology, like point-of-care ultrasound, into a broader hospital setting might not seem like a difficult task, but all procedural changes face some kind of resistance.

Point-of-Care Ultrasound Shows Promise for Osgood-Schlatter Diagnosis

Osgood-Schlatter Diagnosis

Osgood-Schlatter disease is a developmental disorder that causes musculoskeletal problems and is rare in the normal population. However, the condition is more common in teenagers who play sports, affecting an estimated 3-5% percent of this population; it causes painful inflammation below the knee in adolescents and can lead to permanent soft tissue damage.

User Stories: Madrid's Emergency Services and Portable Ultrasound

Since point-of-care ultrasound systems were originally designed for dealing with emergencies in a battlefield setting, it's not surprising that ultrasound now plays a pivotal role in emergency vehicles around the world. Dr Ramón de Elías Hernandez, head of on-call doctors at SAMUR, Madrid’s municipal emergency service, describes the advantages that point-of-care ultrasound brings to his everyday life.

User Stories: 25 Years of Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Anaesthesia

Dr. Thomas Grau, Head of Anaesthesia, Surgery, Intensive Care, Emergency Medicine and Pain at the Gütersloh Clinic, first studied ultrasound for a PhD on spinal imaging at Heidelberg University Hospital in the 1990s. 25 years on, he reflects on the role p

Dr. Thomas Grau, Head of Anaesthesia, Surgery, Intensive Care, Emergency Medicine and Pain at the Gütersloh Clinic, first studied ultrasound for a PhD on spinal imageing at Heidelberg University Hospital in the 1990s. 25 years on, he reflects on the role point-of-care ultrasound now plays in anaesthesia. 

"My first encounters with ultrasound were guided by efforts in Heidelberg to improve epidural anaesthesia in obstetrics.

Ultrasound Guided Nerve Blocks, Not Opioids, for Post-Operative Pain Management

Dr. Sonia Szlyk, an anesthesiologist and director of regional anesthesia for North American Partners in  Anesthesia's Mid-Atlantic division, explains how local anesthesia (aided by ultrasound guidance) is  helping control post-operative discomfort wit

It’s no secret that the U.S. is in the throes of a major heroin epidemic, at least partly caused by the over-prescription of opioid painkillers by well-meaning physicians. When it comes to perioperative pain control, there are new ways to tackle patient discomfort without resorting to prescription opioids.

8 Ways to Avoid Central Line Placement Complications

Placing a central venous catheter using ultrasound guidance

Central line complications: they’re risky, costly, and all-around burden to healthcare. Whether it’s CLABSIs or iatrogenic pneumothoraces, CVC complications are not just terrifying for patients and unnerving for doctors; they are also costly for medical facilities.

Sonosite Patient Safety: Reducing Risk and Cost of Interventional Procedures

As point-of-care ultrasound becomes more common, hospital administrators across the world are understanding that beside ultrasound can do more than provide patients with real-time diagnosis and increase satisfaction scores – it can also make patients safe

As point-of-care ultrasound becomes more common, hospital administrators across the world are understanding that bedside ultrasound can do more than provide patients with real-time diagnosis and increase satisfaction scores – it can also make patients safer.

As we travel across the United States at our Patient Safety Education events in cities like Houston, Atlanta and Seattle, Sonosite will be discussing solutions and strategies for increasing patient safety. We’re inviting

Supporting Homeless Veterans with Sonosite iViz Portable Ultrasound

Sonosite Supports Homeless Veterans with Sonosite iViz Ultrasound

It’s one of the central pillars of the United States military: You don’t leave a fellow soldier behind. 

That ethos pushed five Vietnam veterans, Jack Lyon, Bill Mahedy, Randy Waite, Paul Grasso, and Russ Kelly, to a breaking point in 1981 when they founded Vietnam Veterans of San Diego, a nationally recognised leader in serving homeless military veterans.