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Concept
Emergency ultrasound
Summary
Emergency ultrasound employing point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is the application of ultrasound at the point of care to make immediate patient-care decisions. It is performed by the health care professional caring for the injured or ill persons. This point-of-care use of ultrasound is often to evaluate an emergency medical condition, in settings such as an emergency department, critical care unit, ambulance, or combat zone.
Emergency ultrasound is used to quickly diagnose a limited set of injuries or pathologic conditions, specifically those where conventional diagnostic methods would either take too long or would introduce greater risk to a person (either by transporting the person away from the most closely monitored setting, or exposing them to ionizing radiation and/or intravenous contrast agents).
Point of care ultrasound has been used in a wide variety of specialties and has increased in use in the last decade as ultrasound machines have become more compact and portable. It is now used for a variety of exams in various clinical settings at the person's bedside. In the emergency setting, it is used to guide resuscitation and monitor critically ill persons, provide procedural guidance for improved safety and confirm clinical diagnosis.
In contrast to a comprehensive ultrasound examination, which is typically performed by a sonographer and interpreted by a specialist, point-of-care ultrasound examinations are performed and interpreted by the same clinician and are typically narrower in scope.
Point of care ultrasound is sometimes the only option in the evaluation of injured persons who are too ill for transport to other imaging modalities (i.e. computed tomography, or CT scan) or whose illness is so acute that medical decisions in their care need to be made in seconds to minutes. It is also increasingly used to guide and triage care in resource-limited situations, in rural or medically under-served areas.
For people who present signs of traumatic injury, the focused assessment with sonography for trauma or FAST exam is used to assess hypotensive persons for occult bleeding.
Official source
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