Portsmouth’s Queen Alexandra Hospital is enhancing the care it provides pleural effusion patients with the introduction of a SonoSite S-ICU point-of-care ultrasound system.
Professor Anoop Chauhan, a consultant in respiratory medicine, said: “The British Thoracic Society guidelines recommend that individuals inserting chest drains should have basic training in ultrasound to help them identify the most appropriate and safest place to insert the drain. This reduces the risk and enhances the quality of patient care.”
He added: “We have been using pleural ultrasound for some years for placing chest drains and performing medical thoracoscopies and wanted to upgrade our existing system and take advantage of the improved quality offered by newer equipment. Portability was very important to us, and the S-ICU is ideal because it is not big or cumbersome. The image quality is a great improvement on our old system, and the user-friendly interface makes it so much easier to adjust the resolution, depth and gain.
As well as providing more confidence in selecting the area where a procedure can take place, the S-ICU enables us to complement the information we give to our patients on the display and print facility, helping us to explain what needs to be done and why. Since installation, not a single day has gone by without it being used in either a clinic or on the wards.”
