Critical Care Ultrasound (CCUS)

Education/Training/Application

Ultrasonography has proven to be particularly valuable for critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), where life-threatening conditions such as cardiac tamponade, severe hypovolemia, cardiac failure, hemoperitoneum, and tension pneumothorax can be rapidly distinguished non-invasively in hemodynamically unstable patients. This allows for the immediate institution of appropriate life-saving interventions. Furthermore, ultrasound has played a crucial role in procedural guidance, enhancing procedural success and reducing complications. Critical care providers must possess the ability to make time-sensitive diagnoses and accurately perform lifesaving procedures during acute patient decompensation. Recognizing this, national critical care societies and training oversight groups have advocated for increased training in ultrasound within critical care training programs and enhanced availability of ultrasonography for bedside use in the ICU.

The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education now mandates the availability of ultrasound in all critical care fellowship training programs. However, there are limited best evidence methods for incorporating critical care ultrasound education into existing programs. Critical care training programs face deficiencies in integrating critical care ultrasound into their curriculum. While various recommendations for training have been proposed, there is a lack of a standardized approach to implementing a Critical Care Medicine (CCM) ultrasound curriculum into existing programs. Additionally, measuring the impact of this training and using an implementation science approach to increase adoption for translating to patient benefit is crucial.

Faculty Diversity Scholar Award: Critical care ultrasound training program development (2015-2018)

This funded project aims to develop and implement a critical care educational program in the surgical intensive care unit. The intended goal is to bridge the knowledge and skill gap with a standardized ultrasound training program for critical care practitioners (Aim 1). The project also aims to demonstrate that this program increases the acceptance and proper utilization of ultrasound techniques in critical care (Aim 2) and proves that this training results in improved patient safety while decreasing the utilization of hospital resources (Aim 3).