Nurses and Point-of-Care Ultrasound

Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) are on the rise, and so is the need for point-of-care ultrasound

Workplace evolution has led to traditional tasks and roles formerly reserved for physicians being transitioned to advanced practice providers, such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, clinical nurse specialists, and certified registered nurse anesthetists. Healthcare providers who perform a physical examination coupled with point-of-care ultrasound are uniquely empowered to better understand patient anatomy and detect pathologic conditions. 

As frontline care providers, nurses are always under pressure to provide more efficient and cost-effective healthcare. Technological advances have led to rapid growth in point-of-care ultrasonography. Appropriate use of this technology coupled with robust training solutions will empower nurses and extend the scope of practice of advanced-practice nurses. This broader responsibility and added skill set will radically improve frontline healthcare delivery and efficiency. The list of topics relevant to nurse training is long and will continue to evolve and expand. 

Nurses and Ultrasound Training

Most medical schools are integrating point-of-care ultrasound into their curricula in various ways. Focused ultrasound instruction is used in teaching human anatomy, performing a physical examination, and executing needle-based procedures. 

Similarly, nurse training programs will need to prepare their RN and ARNP program graduates to use bedside ultrasound for the benefit of patient care.

Nursing Schools & APP Training Programs

While bladder sonography and ultrasound-guided peripheral IV catheter placement are basic skills each RN should possess, APPs will have more highly refined ultrasound requirements based on practice specialty. Lack of access to ultrasound machines and trained instructors are some of the biggest challenges to integrating ultrasound into nursing programs. Nursing programs also face the challenge of providing each nursing student standardized access to pathologic cases to scan. This is where SonoSim can help. 

The SonoSim Difference

SonoSim assists nurses with ultrasound education to perform bladder ultrasound, ultrasound-guided peripheral IV catheter placement, and other APP-specific ultrasound  proficiency requirements. Ensure your nurses meet and exceed quality care indicators by performing bladder ultrasound to prevent nosocomial infections and improve patient care and satisfaction by performing ultrasound-guided peripheral IV catheter insertion in "difficult-stick" patients. Novice to advanced learners can learn ultrasound online with the most comprehensive and proven approach available and with 80+ medical topics available to choose from. SonoSim is uniquely poised to support nursing programs with the ability to uniformly train and assess any number of learners.

Nurse POCUS Literature

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Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Making health care safer: a critical analysis of patient safety practices. Evidence report/technology assessment, no. 43, 2001.

Angtuaco TL, Hopkins RH, DuBose TJ, et al. Sonographic Physical Diagnosis 101: teaching senior medical students basic ultrasound scanning skills using a compact ultrasound system. Ultrasound Q. 2007;23:157-160. 

Bahl A, Pandurangadu AV, Tucker J, Bagan M. (2016). A randomized controlled trial assessing the use of ultrasound for nurse-performed IV placement in difficult access ED patients. Am J Emerg Med. 2016;34(10):1950-1954.

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Yatim J, Wong, KS, Ling ML, Tan SB, Tan KY, Hockenberry M. A nurse‐driven process for timely removal of urinary catheters. Int J Urol Nurs. 2016;10(3):167-172.