POINT-OF-CARE ULTRASOUND EXAMINATION

POINT-OF-CARE ULTRASOUND EXAMINATION is a topic covered in the Guide to Diagnostic Tests.

To view the entire topic, please or .

Emergency Central is a collection of disease, drug, and test information including 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult, Davis’s Drug, McGraw-Hill Medical’s Diagnosaurus®, Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests, and MEDLINE Journals created for emergency medicine professionals. Explore these free sample topics:

-- The first section of this topic is shown below --

Point-of-care (POC) ultrasound is the use of compact and portable ultrasonography at a patient’s bedside for a time-sensitive diagnostic or therapeutic purpose. Interpretation of the ultrasound images and immediate clinical decisions can be made by the clinicians conducting the examination, thereby enabling rapid assessment and intervention. To be used for POC examination, the technique should be easily learned and quickly performed, and be used for a well-defined purpose with easily recognizable findings.

POC ultrasound is commonly used in cardiology, obstetrics, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, intensive and critical care, pain management, and vascular surgery settings. Examples of POC ultrasound applications include:

  1. To determine whether an unresponsive patient is bleeding into the abdominal cavity or if a patient is having cardiac tamponade, pulmonary embolism or pneumothorax.
  2. To provide static or dynamic ultrasound-based procedural guidance (eg, vascular access, central venous catheter placement, regional nerve block, thoracentesis).
  3. To monitor pregnancy (status of fetus), intraoperative fluid status and cardiac function, or to diagnose acute synovitis, acute cholecystitis, perforated appendicitis, hemarthrosis, or aortic aneurysm.
  4. To assess the status of bleeding from kidneys, urinary bladder, or prostate and to evaluate a hematoma.

-- To view the remaining sections of this topic, please or --

Point-of-care (POC) ultrasound is the use of compact and portable ultrasonography at a patient’s bedside for a time-sensitive diagnostic or therapeutic purpose. Interpretation of the ultrasound images and immediate clinical decisions can be made by the clinicians conducting the examination, thereby enabling rapid assessment and intervention. To be used for POC examination, the technique should be easily learned and quickly performed, and be used for a well-defined purpose with easily recognizable findings.

POC ultrasound is commonly used in cardiology, obstetrics, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, intensive and critical care, pain management, and vascular surgery settings. Examples of POC ultrasound applications include:

  1. To determine whether an unresponsive patient is bleeding into the abdominal cavity or if a patient is having cardiac tamponade, pulmonary embolism or pneumothorax.
  2. To provide static or dynamic ultrasound-based procedural guidance (eg, vascular access, central venous catheter placement, regional nerve block, thoracentesis).
  3. To monitor pregnancy (status of fetus), intraoperative fluid status and cardiac function, or to diagnose acute synovitis, acute cholecystitis, perforated appendicitis, hemarthrosis, or aortic aneurysm.
  4. To assess the status of bleeding from kidneys, urinary bladder, or prostate and to evaluate a hematoma.

There's more to see -- the rest of this entry is available only to subscribers.