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Objectives: There has been a steady increase in the growth and utilization of point‐of‐care ultrasound (POCUS) in pediatric emergency medicine (PEM). POCUS has been established as an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core requirement for accreditation of PEM fellowship programs. Despite this requirement, training guidelines regarding POCUS knowledge and skills have yet to be developed. The purpose of this project was to develop a curriculum and a competency checklist for PEM fellow POCUS education. Methods: We formed a core leadership group based on expertise in one or more key areas: PEM, POCUS, curriculum development, or Delphi methods. We recruited 29 PEM POCUS or ultrasound education experts from North America to participate in a three‐round electronic Delphi project. The first Delphi round asked experts to generate a list of the core POCUS knowledge and skills that a PEM fellow would need during training to function as an autonomous practitioner. Subsequent rounds prioritized the list of knowledge and skills, and the core leadership group organized knowledge and skills into global competencies and subcompetencies. Results: The first Delphi round yielded 61 POCUS areas of knowledge and skills considered important for PEM fellow learning. After two subsequent Delphi rounds, the list of POCUS knowledge and skills was narrowed to 38 items that addressed elements of six global competencies. The core leadership group then revised items into subcompetencies and categorized them under global competencies, developing a curriculum that defined the scope (depth of content) and sequence (order of teaching) of these POCUS knowledge and skill items. Conclusions: This expert, consensus‐generated POCUS curriculum provides detailed guidance for PEM fellowships to incorporate POCUS education into their programs. Our curriculum also identifies core ultrasound knowledge and skills needed by PEM fellows to perform the specific POCUS applications recommended in prior publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has an ever-growing footprint in medicine. With this growth POCUS billing and reimbursement has become an area gaining quite a bit of attention as a means of funding and sustaining quality and education programs. Standardization across providers is needed to improve the financial viability of POCUS. Results: We created an institutional collaborative which developed a framework to identify critical POCUS billing and reimbursement checkpoints. The framework, Billing I-AIM, provides a feasible structure to enhance provider-based reimbursement and perform quality improvement efforts across variable POCUS environments. Conclusions: POCUS billing using the Billing I-AIM technique allows administrative oversight, quality assurance, and educational functions as well. A discussion of the framework and respective application is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protocols for the sanitation and maintenance of point‐of‐care ultrasound (US) equipment are lacking. This study introduces the CLEAR protocol (clean, locate, energize, augment supplies, and remove patient identifiers) as a tool to improve the readiness of US equipment, termed US equipment homeostasis. The state of US equipment homeostasis in the emergency department of a single academic center was investigated before and after implementing this protocol, with an improvement in outcomes. These findings demonstrate that the CLEAR protocol can improve US homeostasis. CLEAR can function as a teaching tool to promote homeostasis as well as a checklist to assess compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents his views on concept of developing a point-of-care ultrasound contest for medical students.

Introduction: Intravascular volume status is an important clinical consideration in the management of the critically ill. Point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) has gained popularity as a non-invasive means of intravascular volume assessment via examination of the inferior vena cava (IVC). However, there are limited data comparing different acquisition techniques for IVC measurement by POCUS. The goal of this evaluation was to determine the reliability of three IVC acquisition techniques for volume assessment: subxiphoid transabdominal long axis (LA), transabdominal short axis (SA), and right lateral transabdominal coronal long axis (CLA) (aka “rescue view”). Methods: Volunteers were evaluated by three experienced emergency physician sonographers (EP). Gray scale (B-mode) and motion-mode (M-mode) diameters were measured and IVC collapsibility index (IVCCI) calculated for three anatomic views (LA, SA, CLA). For each IVC measurement, we calculated descriptive statistics, intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC), and two-way univariate analyses of variance. Results: EPs evaluated 39 volunteers, yielding 351 total US measurements. Measurements of the three views had similar means (LA 1.9 ± 0.4cm; SA 1.9 ± 0.4cm; CLA 2.0 ± 0.5cm). For B-Mode, LA had the highest ICC (0.86, 95% CI [0.76-0.92]) while CLA had the poorest ICC (0.74, 95% CI [0.56-0.85]). ICCs for all M-mode IVCCI were low. Significant interaction effects between anatomical view and EP were observed for B-mode and M-mode measurements. Post-hoc analyses revealed difficulty in consistent view acquisition between EPs. Conclusion: Inter-rater reliability of the IVC by EPs was highest for B-mode LA and poorest for all M-Mode IVC collapsibility indices (IVCCI). These results suggest that B-mode LA holds the most promise to deliver reliable measures of IVC diameter. Future studies may focus on validation in a clinical setting as well as comparison to a reference standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: Traditional methods for intravascular volume status assessment are invasive and are associated significant complications. While focused bedside sonography of the inferior vena cava (IVC) has been shown to be useful in estimating intravascular volume status, it may be technically difficult and limited by patient factors such as obesity, bowel gas, or postoperative surgical dressings. The goal of this investigation is to determine the feasibility of subclavian vein (SCV) collapsibility as an adjunct to IVC collapsibility in intravascular volume status assessment. Methods: A prospective study was conducted on a convenience sample of surgical intensive care unit patients to evaluate interchangeability of IVC collapsibility index (IVC-CI) and SCV-CI. After demographic and acuity of illness information was collected, all patients underwent serial, paired assessments of IVC-CI and SCV-CI using portable ultrasound device (M-Turbo; Sonosite, Bothell, WA). Vein collapsibility was calculated using the formula [collapsibility (%) = (max diameter – min diameter)/max diameter × 100%]. Paired measurements from each method were compared using correlation coefficient and Bland–Altman measurement bias analysis. Results: Thirty-four patients (mean age 56 y, 38% female) underwent a total of 94 paired SCV-CI and IVC-CI sonographic measurements. Mean acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II score was 12. Paired SCV- and IVC-CI showed acceptable correlation (R2 = 0.61, P < 0.01) with acceptable overall measurement bias [Bland–Altman mean collapsibility difference (IVC-CI minus SCV-CI) of −3.2%]. In addition, time needed to acquire and measure venous diameters was shorter for the SCV-CI (70 s) when compared to IVC-CI (99 s, P < 0.02). Conclusions: SCV collapsibility assessment appears to be a reasonable adjunct to IVC-CI in the surgical intensive care unit patient population. The correlation between the two techniques is acceptable and the overall measurement bias is low. In addition, SCV-CI measurements took less time to acquire than IVC-CI measurements, although the clinical relevance of the measured time difference is unclear. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]