System Wide Ultrasound Directors

Cory Wittrock, MD, FACEP - Chair

As POCUS is increasingly utilized by a variety of specialties, EPs step up to the leadership forefront implementing POCUS infrastructure.  There is demand by hospital network administrators to institute a comprehensive approach to deploying POCUS broadly. Our subcommittee provides SWCUS resources to the ACEP EUS community and is dedicated to support anyone starting a system-wide program, expanding their efforts, or experiencing challenges achieving their goals.

Prior Accomplishments

• The subcommittee, in concert with the Industry Roundtable (IRT) subcommittee developed two websites, POCUS Workflow and POCUS Alliance, designed to serve as intradisciplinary platform to warehouse evidence/resources and assist with communication regardless of specialty.
• May 2022 Meeting held - topics covered:
  • Post-COVID $
  • EM tasked with other departments needs
  • Handheld governance
• Publication: ACEP/SAEM/AAEM
  • Cormack CJ, Wald AM, Coombs PR, Kallos L, Blecher GE. Time to establish pillars in point-of-care ultrasound. AJUM. 2019;22(1):12-14.
  • Strony RJ, Marin JR, Bailitz J, Dean, AJ, Blaivas M, Tayal VS, et al. Systemwide clinical ultrasound program development: An expert consensus model. West J Emerg Med. 2018;19(4):649-653. 
• Town Hall/Meetings with SAEM and AAEM collaboration:

SWCUS Town Hall Recording: A collaborative discussion among ACEP, SAEM and AAEM members regarding developing system-wide clinical ultrasound committees. Moderated by ACEP US Chair Nova Panebianco with panelists Dr. Rob Strony, Dr. Zach Soucy (ACEP US System-Wide Subcommittee chairs) and expert Dr. Amie Woods, this video gives lessons learned when starting these committees and helpful ideas for successful implementation. A huge THANK YOU should go to Dr. Rachel Liu for recording the event and getting the transcript together!

SWCUS Supported video documents

• SWCUD Chat Transcript (PDF)
• Summary of SWCUD Discussion (PDF)

Future Objectives

• Continue to conduct Spring Town Hall meetings
• Winter subcommittee meeting
• Further Web enhancement on POCUS Workflow and POCUS Alliance
  • Specialty docs, SWCUS Roadmap, Bill code sustainability, IS/IT EMR Middleware, Quality, Education
• Large scale SWCUS publication
  • Coming Soon!
• Collaboration with other EUS subcommittees
• Advance alliances with clinicians in other specialties working on similar goals
• Create a roster of current technology/vendors available and outline their products' specifics suitable specifically for system-wide POCUS implementation.

SWCUS Toolkit

Section 1: Governance

• System Wide Clinical Ultrasound Director and Committee
• Clinical Ultrasound Advisor Position
• SWCUS Generic Job Description

Section 2: Procurement

• Example System US Purchase Approval Form

Section 3: Image Archiving and Workflow Solutions

Section 4: Revenue Capture

Section 5: Credentialing, Competency, and QA

Section 6: SWCUD Relevant Articles