POCUS
July 11, 2023 2023-09-13 12:53POCUS
Point of Care Ultrasound
(POCUS)
Bridging innovations to
todays’ practice needs
What is POCUS?
POCUS, as mentioned in various guidelines, is an acronym which stands for Point of Care Ultrasound, a term that can be adequately described as “a diagnostic or procedural guidance ultrasound that is performed by a clinician during a patient encounter to help guide the evaluation and management of the patient.”
POCUS
Definition
Point of Care Ultrasound is complementary to a medical examination performed by primary care physicians in conjunction to physical examination to investigate unclear findings. As such it is used to find and identify either the presence or absence of specific pathological results seen in your patients. POCUS is an increasingly growing field that can be applied in various clinical situations. It is certainly not limited to its exact definition, seeing as it can be used in an intensive care unit to monitor therapy, in the emergency department to exclude or include severe pathological findings, to look for free fluids inside the abdomen and thorax in trauma patients, or even just in a preclinical setting.
POCUS value to your practice
Nowadays, POCUS has grown even further to the extent that ultrasound machine has been considered as an essential and integrative part of every medical practitioner. Any speciality, in today’s practice needs, requires an ultrasound to:
- Expedite the clinical decision
- Increase patient compliance
- Perform informed and guided interventions
POCUS integration Challenges
POCUS training
However, integrating ultrasound into everyday practice is not an easy task to most medical specialities that don’t have extensive training like radiology-based specialities. Accordingly, the need for speciality-tailored POCUS training is one of todays’ challenges.
Aisin: The Gate has built a tailored, sustainable, and effective training platform for variety of specialties and expanding.
Click here to look deeper into our training platform opportunities and our previous trainings and projects.
Ultrasound Purchase Guide
Furthermore, a couple of issues also emerge:
1- Which ultrasound machine is to invest in?
There is no size fits all and you have to decide on the most relevant probe physics that corresponds to the interventive or preventive procedures you mostly perform with your patients.
Clarius handheld ultrasound provides a wide range of scanners and advanced software packages that fit every specialized practice whether it has an intervention or prevention approach.
Learn more about Clarius family of scanners and the software specialized packages.
This also requires you to familiarize yourself with the technical specs each probe/ultrasound machine can provide. However, specs on paper should also match the output of the machine, which needs to be usable for your diagnostic and/or interventional needs.
Clarius hand heald ultrasound provides a hospital-grade imaging quality, superior design, and the best specs in class, yet at the ease of being able to fit into your pocket.
Learn more about Clarius technical specs here.
2- Accessibility:
in today’s practice, POCUS represents an essential need in everyday practice integration. To fit into your operating theatre, use it for touring your patients, teaching your students and/or using it at your clinic or hospital, the ideal ultrasound machine is the one that helps you tick more than one box and be usable every time everywhere.
Clarius is an ultraportable machine that provides ease of accessibility enabling any professional to do ultrasound anywhere.
Learn more about Clarius here.
Clarius also is your best option for intraoperative ultrasound. Clarius is also powered by dedicated and advanced software packages that back you up in each scenario.
Learn more about Clarius technical specs here and software packages here.
3- Records Management:
Most of our health institutions lack the PACS system (Picture Archiving and Communication System), which enables HCPs to keep track of imaging system outputs and share them with other specialities for a more collaborative and multidisciplinary approach. This means that you must come up with your own solutions to keep track, document and share ultrasound output. Furthermore, and in the case of the presence of PACS infrastructure, this means that the ultrasound machine of choice should be able to communicate via DICOM to this system.
Clarius provides a user-friendly platform that enables you to seamlessly share, manage and keep track of your ultrasound Images to unlimited cloud storage that also enables you to edit, annotate and perform additional measurements from any other PC or smart device.
Learn more about Clarius Cloud Management here.
4 – The physical presence of an authorized retail and service provider on the ground:
- The warranty and after-sale service are key pillars to consider in making your purchase decision.
- The level of support provided by the distributor and the on-ground presence are, indeed, essential.
Aisin: The Gate is the exclusive distributor of Clarius mobile health and is the sole partner that exclusively holds the rights of marketing, sales, and maintenance of Clarius handheld in both Iraq and Jordan.
5- Price and value:
Given the competition landscape and the variety of options out there, it is not an easy task to pick a price model that corresponds to the added value you look for. In the word of ultrasound machines, a lot of factors should correspond to crafting the final retail price and should be addressed appropriately by suppliers so customers can make an informed decision. Some of these are:
- Resolution and depth (frequency)
- number of piezoelectric elements that correspond to the resolution and image quality
- Imaging modes (B-mode, M-Mode and SC)
- Doppler capabilities and sensitivity (color doppler, power doppler and PW doppler)
- Accessibility: weight of the machine and how easy to have it on you in everyday practice. IP rating for water, dust, and detergents so you could also use in intraoperatively. A rigid scanner is also recommended with drop-test rating as you are most likely is going to carry it along with you.
Click here for Clarius handheld detailed technical specs.
- Software enhancements: Needle enhancement, elastography, split screen
- Software dedicated presets that help operator reduce time when examining specific anatomical structures.
- Software-enabled and dedicated calculations to get the most done for each diagnosis.
- Artificial intelligence integration that shortens timeframe for dedicated identification of anatomical structures.
Click here for Clarius handheld detailed software packages and dedicated calculation sets.
- Reliable user experience: how solid the overall system is and how user friendly it could get: wireless vs wired scanners, connection stability, lifelong software updates, and time saving tweaks (i.e., speech recognition to change modes without touching anything).
- testimonials and share of voice: a good ultrasound machine become only good when it meets and even exceeds users’ expectations. A solid supplier of ultrasound machines should provide a wealth of data available of testimonials, benchmarks, and experience of other people accessible to you.
Click here to see how Clarius has added value to everyday practice for each and every speciality.
- Resources: whether these resources correspond to the technicality of the machine itself, show-case machine performance, or to help you polish your ultrasonic skills, a customer-oriented and centric supplier should take this into consideration.
Click here to access Clarius Classroom, a rich source of knowledge, training, and resources.
- Price structure vs the added value: Price is only a number that should be powered by the value added to your practice. Aside of technicalities, check with suppliers on how the price is built and how does it correspond to providing a rich, sustainable, and secure experience with your ultrasound machine.
Click here to take a look on our price structure for Clarius handheld Ultrasound
