Point-of-care ultrasound provides EMED clinicians with valuable additional information.
Point-of-care ultrasound provides valuable additional information in emergency medicine, helping to guide clinical decision making, as Dr Jonny Gordon, EMED consultant at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, explained: “Point-of-care ultrasound has an important role to play in the emergency department. We routinely assess trauma patients by FAST and, in the event of a major incident, ultrasound can also provide an indication of which patients should be most urgently prioritised for CT scans. It is also important for line placement of course, and we have had a SonoSite system for this for over 10 years, which is virtually indestructible. Our patient retrieval services use point-of-care ultrasound too – and there is growing interest from the ambulance service – so that we get advance notification of incoming patients diagnosed with life-threatening conditions, such as abdominal aortic aneurysms for example.”
“Teaching is an important consideration and trainees attending one of our courses have the opportunity to try ultrasound for themselves, learning the basic technique before honing their skills under supervision in the hospital environment, in order to demonstrate their competency and achieve the necessary certification. SonoSite’s XPorte® system, with its dual screen, is particularly useful in this regard. Although training simulators are available, they are exceptionally expensive. With the X-Porte, trainees can scan a patient and visualise the image on the upper screen while simultaneously comparing it with a learning module displayed on the bottom screen. It’s a beautiful system that is ideal for our training courses.”
Source & Image Credit: FUJIFILM SonoSite
