Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS), or bedside ultrasound, is an ultrasound that is performed by clinicians (not radiologists or ultrasonographers) in a clinic or at the patient's bedside.
POCUS is not ultrasound that is scheduled and performed in the departments of:
POCUS studies are limited in nature and answer questions directly impacting the patient's immediate care or help with improving safety during procedural guidance.
At Dartmouth Health, a multidisciplinary system-wide POCUS steering committee has been developed, which is co-chaired by Petra Lewis, MD and Zachary Soucy, DO.
This committee is developing guidelines and processes to standardize the education, credentialing, performance, equipment, reporting, image storage, and infection control of all POCUS examinations.
Dartmouth Health departments who wish to perform POCUS should contact Dr. Soucy at zachary.p.soucy@hitchcock.org or Dr. Lewis at petra.j.lewis@hitchcock.org, or visit the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics POCUS intranet website.
Note: You must be connected to the DHMC and Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics network to access the intranet. To connect to the network from a remote location, visit Secure Access.
Other institutions that are interested in the documentation and guidelines that we are developing may refer to the POCUS Database website to download resources.