The healthcare industry is a multi billion dollar industry. Advancements take place almost on a daily basis. One of the greatest technologies available to healthcare workers is the point of care ultrasound. At some point in a person’s life, they will probably have one of these ultrasounds performed on themselves, or a loved one.
A point of care ultrasound is a highly effective, yet portable device, used by almost all healthcare providers. Most people relate the word ultrasound, with radiology, but nowadays, the point of care ultrasound is so widely used that almost every healthcare professional uses one. It is a safe, portable, and a very effective way of diagnosing illnesses from your bedside. It comes in a variety of sizes. From a laptop sized machine, to a smaller version that is a handheld device. There’s even one that just plugs right into the computer in your room.
Oftentimes throughout a person’s life, they will fall ill to some ungodly illness or disease. This is where the point of care ultrasound would come in handy. It can help with bedside diagnosis of heart failure, pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, hypothermia, cardiac tamponade, and many more.
At some point you might need some sort of diagnostic test done. Especially after suffering some sort of trauma. The point of care ultrasound is undeniably useful in determining these cases. Cases of cardiac arrest are often diagnosed using the point of care ultrasound.
Another good use for the point of care ultrasound is using it in a clinical setting for diagnosing a patient’s symptoms. So say you show up to a doctors appointment with a list of symptoms a mile long. Your physician could easily use the point of care ultrasound to diagnose an illness just by your symptoms.
Doctors and surgeons alike perform surgeries and procedures a lot differently than they used to. This day in age, most of the procedures are done by using such instruments as the point of care ultrasound. They use this as a procedural guidance for seeing during the operation or procedure. Got an upcoming thoracentesis? How about a lumbar puncture or a joint aspiration? Well, guess what the doctor is going to use? You guessed right. The point of care ultrasound. It is also useful for foreign body removal, temporary pacemaker placement, and regional anesthesia.
Oftentimes physicians will do blood work when an illness or disease is suspected. And rightfully so, they should. But the point of care ultrasound is highly capable of detecting issues with things such as your gallbladder, abdominal aortic aneurysms, the size and contents of your bile ducts, kidney stones, incontinence, and the size and diameter of a person’s spleen. How amazing is that? It can even be used to detect free fluid around your joints. The heartbeat of an unborn child or a painful episode of an ectopic pregnancy. And yes, even the detection of masses and thrombi with multilevel compression sonography.
People in the medical profession will use the point of care ultrasound to continue to develop the skills and knowledge required to continue using these devices and further developing them for years to come. This training is required for not only inpatient medicine, but outpatient medicine as well. The point of care ultrasound cme is quite a lengthy list of requirements for healthcare professionals. So you can feel safe and secure knowing that your healthcare team is highly trained and up-to-date on all their training.
