Barriers to point-of-care ultrasound use in rural emergency departments

Abstract

Over the past few decades, point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) has come to play a major role in the practice of emergency medicine. Despite its numerous benefits, there has been a slow uptake of PoCUS use in rural emergency departments. Surveys conducted across Canada and the United States have identified a lack of equipment, training, funding, quality assurance, and an inability to maintain skills as major barriers to PoCUS use. Potential solutions include expanding residency training in ultrasound skills, extending funding for PoCUS training to rural physicians in practice, moving PoCUS training courses to rural sites, and creating telesonography training for rural physicians. With these barriers identified and solutions proposed, corrective measures must be taken so that the benefits of PoCUS are extended to patients in rural Canada where, arguably, it has the greatest potential for benefit when access to advanced imaging is not readily available.

Keywords: PoCUS; emergency department; point-of-care; rural; ultrasound.