Survey on the use of point-of-care ultrasound detection in 300 emergency departments of tertiary hospital in China in 2018

Abstract

To investigate the possession of ultrasound equipment and use of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in emergency department of tertiary hospitals in China to figure out the present condition of POCUS in the emergency department. Questionnaire survey was performed through the internet, which included equipment possession, usage, and the sterile technique of the probe in the emergency department of tertiary hospitals. Between September and December in 2018, a total of 2 994 questionnaires link was clicked, and 718 survey responses were collected. After removing duplicated and non-tertiary hospitals questionnaires, the final questionnaire survey covered 300 tertiary hospitals, of which 250 were tertiary A hospitals (83.3%). The number of emergency department which own bedside ultrasound machine was 173 (57.7%), 40.6% (122) of the departments had only one ultrasonic machine. The main sources of equipment were new bought machines (119, 68.8%), given (38, 22.0%) or rented old machines from the ultrasound department (42, 24.3%). None of the emergency physicians in 92 (30.7%) departments mastered the POCUS skills, and 52.7% of the response hospital had less than a quarter emergency physicians grasp the skills. Fees of the POCUS could be charged in 52 (30.1%) of them. The main methods to clean or sterilize the probes were to wipe the probe by cleaning dry paper (97, 56.1%), sterile wet paper (69, 39.9%) or special probe disinfector (23, 13.3%), and used probe protective sleeve and sterile gel (12, 6.9%) as necessary; 79 (45.7%) departments had no conventional probe disinfection measures. When the ultrasonic was used to guide the punctures, the prevention of infection policies were the sterile gloves and saline (106, 61.3%), disposable probe protective sleeve and sterile gel (55, 31.8%). The propagation of POCUS in emergency department is needed to develop in tertiary hospitals in China. The right way to clean the probes need to be emphasized.