POCUS simulator aids training for COVID-19 lung ultrasound

Facing the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing number of patients in need of diagnosis, the Veteran’s Administration NY Harbor Healthcare Simulation Center has introduced critical care simulation-based training sessions, utilising a BodyWorks Eve point-of-care ultrasound simulator with a newly installed COVID-19 lung module. Initiated on March 19, the three-hour sessions have prepared non-critical healthcare providers for roles as bedside ICU providers, under the supervision of an intensivist.

Professor of anaesthesiology, medicine, neurology and neurosurgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the simulation laboratory at VA NY Harbor Healthcare, Manhattan, Dr Brian Kaufman said: “As all the hospitals in the NYU Langone Health system and major affiliates including the Manhattan campus and Bellevue Hospital were being deluged with COVID-19 patients requiring ICU admission and care, there was an overwhelming need for rapid expansion of ICU beds and providers to care for these patients. These needs were exacerbated when some of our usual ICU clinical providers needed to quarantine.

The simulation sessions have been made available to all providers scheduled to begin working in the COVID-19 ICUs, with no more than six participants scheduled for each three-hour session. The hospital has relied on participants from various departments including medicine, surgery, anaesthesiology, paediatrics and acute care nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Dr Kaufman said that, up to April 16, a total of 149 participants had been trained.

BodyWorks Eve is available from Intelligent Ultrasound.

Published on page 15 of the June 2020 issue of RAD Magazine.