Ultrasound System Scans Available 24/7 for Critical Care Patients

Consultants in the intensive care unit (ICU) at a British hospital will now be able to carry out focused ultrasound scans on critically ill patients around the clock, rather than calling in support from cardiology or radiology colleagues.

A SonoSite (Bothell, WA, USA) M-Turbo point-of-care ultrasound system was donated to the department at Royal Derby Hospital (Derby, UK) in April 2009 specifically for this purpose by the British Heart Foundation and the Derby Scanner and Medical Equipment (SAME) Appeal.

Dr. Craig Morris, a consultant anesthetist who leads on ultrasound for the department, said, "The contribution this instrument has already made cannot be overestimated. It has revolutionized the care given at the bedside in the ICU. Previously, we may have had questions about the amount of damage to a patient's heart, but these can now be answered straightaway and effective treatment can be started almost immediately.”

Dr. Morris has extensive experience in the use of ultrasound in the intensive care setting. He explained the changing role of point-of-care ultrasound in intensive care, "Until four years ago, focused echocardiography was the main application for us. Since then, point-of-care ultrasound has become an essential everyday tool and has totally changed our management. We perform a lot of thoracic and FAST (Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma) scanning outside the trauma setting, mainly screening for intra-abdominal sepsis. This is a liver unit so we look for ascites, and are currently developing our hepatobiliary and renal work.”

As well as the recently donated M-Turbo system, the department also has several SonoSite S-ICU instruments. Dr. Morris added, "The S-ICUs were initially bought principally for vascular access. However, it is such an easy system to use that it is perfect for training. It offers basic tissue Doppler echocardiography with color flow as well, and is proving ideal for trainees and novices to learn and be comfortable with quick focus scans for hemodynamic assessment. We run the national Derby Intensive Care Echo [DICE] course, supported by SonoSite, and the training program we have in place is to be extended nationally with support from the Intensive Care Society. The November course will be attended by representatives of the Society, who will be observing the course as an example for an intensive care training model in the UK. This has been intentionally kept almost identical to the emergency medicine training pathway because trainees now come to ICU through common backgrounds. The quality of SonoSite systems is excellent. The image quality, resolution and sharpness of the picture on the S-ICU is noticeably better than on other competitive products I have seen in the same price bracket. The role of point-of-care ultrasound continues to develop and, for ICU, the most recent of these is consideration by the ReSus council on using 2D imaging in the context of peri-arrest patients. There will be a major cost implication if this becomes a recommended part of resuscitations and there will then be a strong clinical need for an instrument like the S-ICU.”

SonoSite is a developer of in hand-carried ultrasound. SonoSite's small, lightweight systems are expanding the use of ultrasound across the clinical spectrum by cost-effectively bringing high performance ultrasound to the point of patient care.

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Royal Derby Hospital