Portable Ultrasound Machines

The primary advantage of the portable ultrasound machine is its widespread utility. As you can take the machine to the patient’s bedside and into the field, it is a highly useful tool for making quick diagnoses with confidence and high productivity, as well as sharing images with patients on the spot. If the ultrasound is made by a doctor, a diagnosis could be immediate. In addition, portable machines can easily be relocated as necessary to function in a variety of situations, including technician and lab settings, as well as clinical and hospital settings and pre-hospital phase of care.
In 2013 outcomes of the study “Prehospital chest ultrasound by a dutch helicopter emergency medical service” conducted by Ketelaars et al. was published in Journal of Emergency Medicine. 326 portable US examinations of the chest were performed on 281 patients. The mean duration of a portable US examination was 2.77 (+/-1.30) min, and the duration decreased over time. After the US examination, the plan for treatment changed in 60 patients, for example for 10 patients the plan to place a chest tube was abandoned, for other 10 patients the initially selected hospital destination for definitive care changed (to a lower-level hospital more often than to a higher-level one);for 9 patients a decision to stop cardiopulmonary resuscitation was undertaken. In conclusion, information obtained by administering pre-hospital US aided in foregoing unnecessary invasive interventions and directing patients to the appropriate type of hospital, although further prospective data is needed to provide evidence regarding the value of pre-hospital ultrasound.
A review of studies on portable ultrasound conducted by Rudolph et al. was published in Resuscitation. They confirmed the general trend in the available literature, which suggests that portable ultrasound is a helpful tool in pre-hospital decision making and that it may positively impact diagnosis, treatment and referral and is unlikely to cause harm. Due to Becker’s systematic review published in Tropical Medicine and International Health in 2016 the effect is valid in developing and low-income to middle-income countries as well.