Ultrasound
Nibras Bughrara, MD, FASA, FCCM
Associate professor of Anesthesiology and Surgery
Albany Medical College
Albany, NY
Disclosure(s): No relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose.
Siddharth Dugar, MD, FCCM (he/him/his)
Associate Staff
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
cleveland, Ohio, United States
Disclosure information not submitted.
Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) use has increased dramatically, spurred by the availability of inexpensive and portable handheld machines, and has become an essential component of shock and respiratory failure assessment. The Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI) has raised concerns about POCUS adoption outpacing safeguards in medical practice. The Joint Commission included POCUS in the top 10 health technology hazards for 2020. Concerns center around the use of POCUS in the absence of quality assurance, which can lead to POCUS misuse and diagnostic errors (defined as diagnostic process failures leading to incorrect diagnoses or overdiagnoses, both of which can potentially cause significant patient harm). A robust quality assurance process can help identify POCUS diagnostic challenges and improve diagnostic accuracy. Some diagnostic challenges may be evident, such as when a POCUS study has a conflicting result with a confirmatory study performed soon afterward. Others may be less apparent, such as when a diagnosis and management plan are changed based on POCUS without any image archival or documentation. This session will review 1) evident diagnostic difficulties with POCUS, 2) hidden diagnostic difficulties with POCUS, 3) frameworks to mitigate evident and hidden diagnostic difficulties, 4) the POCUS quality assurance process (primer and implementation steps), and 5) how to boost basic and advanced POCUS training in an institution.
Concurrent Session Faculty: Carla Venegas, MD – Mayo Clinic Jacksonville
Concurrent Session Faculty: Nibras Bughrara, MD, FASA, FCCM – Albany Medical College
Concurrent Session Faculty: Jose L. Diaz-Gomez, MD, FCCM – Baylor Saint Luke's Medical Center
Concurrent Session Faculty: Siddharth Dugar, MD, FCCM – Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Concurrent Session Faculty: Jayne Chirdo Taylor, PA – Baylor College of Medicine