Old news... but still important.
26 Sept 2022: Welcome to our residents who are taking the Advanced POCUS Rotation at UHN. We thank Sunnybrook for their collaboration in delivering this rotation to our residents. All resources for this rotation are available at www.pocustoronto.com.
13 Sept 2022: For any new qpath/POCUS users from September 2022 onwards - your OPERATOR ID or user name for qpath will be in the formal of firstinitialLASTNAME (for example Dennis Cho = dcho; Mickey Mouse = mmouse).
28 August 2022: Quality Assurance reports are back up and running. We will endeavour to provide you with feedback for any properly saved scan within 48 hours of scan completion - these will be send to your UHN mailbox. Remember: saved images without an MRN or operator ID will NOT receive QA.
21 Jan 2022: Happy new year. All advanced and basic rotations are progressing with appropriate PPE guidelines and protections as usual.
28 Oct 2021: Welcome back to our basic and advanced POCUS rotation residents!
22 Feb 22 2021: We are excited to announce the return of UHN POCUS Rounds - Friday March 5, 2021 at 1400-1600 on MS Teams. Please email us or Amy Becker for an invitation.
23 Aug 2020: Our Advanced POCUS Rotation residents are back - Welcome Chris and Phil as they learn extra POCUS skills during the block!
2 Aug 2020: Quick Tips have returned! Bite-sized POCUS pearls that you can apply on your next shift.
4 July 2020: Consultants - please save your POCUS images for later viewing using the 'operator' ID: consults. A member of the ED team can show you how to access images online via QPATH.
8 June 2020: Welcome to Dr. Anne Aspler to our POCUS team. Thank you to Adam Slomer, Claire Acton, and Phil Stasiak for all your contributions to POCUS.
Apr 13, 2020: New faster ways of archiving/saving images are available. Check out the updated video.
March 28, 2020: COVID-19 response is well under way. POCUS is here to support you!
Mar 4, 2020: Brand new quick guides to POCUS-landmarked paracentesis and thoracentesis.
Feb 5, 2020: Congratulations to Claire Acton, winner of this year's 2019 CPoCUS Outreach Award for her empowering work teaching POCUS as part of the TAAAC-EM program.
Jan 4, 2020: Wondering what we've achieved in the last year and what we're excited about in 2020? We present our 2019 UHN ED POCUS Year in Review.
A brief 2 minute video on how to properly save/archive images is now available. Remember: no phantom scanning. A scan not saved is equivalent to scan not done.
Jan 2, 2019: HAPPY 2020 EVERYONE! The UHN POCUS team is excited for 2020, and we'll be bringing you great cases, tips, and learning opportunities. 20-20 means Perfect Vision, right? Sounds like 2020 should be called The Year of POCUS...
Dec 20, 2019: Have a safe and happy holiday. Will continue updates in the new year!
Dec 9, 2019: Stay tuned for our year-end update!
Nov 10, 2019: Hey simulationists! Do you want a quick and easy way to deeply integrate POCUS into your simulations? POCUSim can help! Blank template ready for you to use.
Oct 27, 2019: Chest pain and a vague ECG? POCUS can be a powerful tool to help identify regional wall motion abnormalities. Flex those cardiac views and practice some ECGs thanks to this amazingly informative post by Jesse Mclaren on his ECG Quality Improvement blog.
Oct 21, 2019: Forget what "normal" is supposed to look like? Remind yourself.
Oct 9, 2019: Sign up for our brand new NAPS program for staff. See email for more information about the program.
Oct 7, 2019: Check out our new Quick Tips - bite-sized pieces of POCUS knowledge to help refresh your knowledge or learn something new.
Sept 25, 2019: Evaluations for your instructors are live! Please take 2 minutes and evaluate your teachers.
Aug 5, 2019: How to tell between a retinal detachment and posterior vitreous detachment on POCUS?
July 19, 2019: Check out our new Quick Tips and Pearls. Learn something new in under 30 seconds.
July 17, 2019: Teaching evaluations will be live soon. Please fill out an evaluation for our instructors after each session.
July 3, 2019: Congrats to Adam Slomer, Dennis Cho and the entire UHN Apheresis Team - nominated for a UHN Local Impact award for the POCUS-guided PIV initiative.
June 18, 2019: The number of saved images has increased nearly 200% since we rolled out archiving in January 2019 and the number of staff saving scans has increased nearly 150%.
March 28, 2019: Congrats to Claire Heslop who represented all things cutting edge and good in POCUS at SMACC in Sydney, Australia this year. Coming soon - TEE as part of resus?
Jan 28, 2019: Many of you who have archived scans properly are now receiving full QA reports of your scan. What did you do well? What could you improve? Want feedback? Save your scans and you'll receive it. Ensure you enter your LAST NAME as the OPERATOR. All reports will be sent to UHN email. Credit to Telisha Smith-Gorvie and Oliver Van Praet who consistently archive more scans than anyone else.
Dec 27, 2018: We've had an amazing 2018. Please read our 2018 Year in Review - celebrating our successes, acknowledging our champions, and looking forward to the future. Happy holidays!
Dec 10, 2018: Qpath (our image archiving solution) is almost live. What will qpath let us do? All images automatically saved; feedback on all images; sharing findings with colleagues/other specialties; safe decision making. Get in the habit of saving images = first+last name+MRN+your LAST name (in the operator field)
Nov 15, 2018: Introducing our new video seminar series - POCUS-related talks by some of our experts. Approach to Ocular POCUS presented by Sameer Masood at the UHN Conference.
Nov 8, 2018: UHN POCUS was involved with three workshops at this year's UHN Emergency Medicine Conference. Thanks to our local (Adam Slomer, Sameer Masood, Phil Stasiak, Claire Heslop, Dennis Cho, Alex Hart) and visiting (Craig Brick, Adrian Wu) experts for lending a hand and to Mindray for supplying ultrasound equipment.
Oct 4, 2018: Please remember to include patient's FIRST and LAST name & MRN when saving images. Remember - an image that is not saved should NOT be used for clinical decision making OR billing.
Sept 11, 2018: A personal archiving solution that removes patient identifiers automatically for POCUS images.
Sept 10, 2018: Please sign up for basic ultrasound scanning with the new emergency R1s. Here's a review on the basics.
August 6, 2018: Femoral nerve block kits are now live at TGH (in the RAZ med room, bottom drawer). Thanks to Dan Goodman for leading this initiative.
July 27, 2018: Congrats to Claire Acton who is our new ED Post-Grad Education Lead heading up the Basic and Advanced Rotations at UHN.
June 27, 2018: New POCUS Billing Cheat Sheet and don't forget about our POCUS Cheat Sheet with a reminder of normal/abnormal values
June 15, 2018: Want to save a video? Hit P1. Saving a still image? Hit "Freeze" then "Save". How to get images off the machine? go to "iStation", hover the mouse over the files from your patient, and click "Send Exam" to save it to your USB key. You can always save the files anonymously (option when saving) and/or use Sonoclipshare to delete out patient information, save clips for presentations, and even make cool gifs for twitter! Info here.
Feb 18, 2018: Make savings scans more efficient! Both the TGH and TWH machines have a barcode scanner. When archiving, scan the TOP LINE of the patient's wrist band for the MRN.
Apr 10, 2018: We will now be broadcasting our learning events on Google Hangouts - please contact Dennis or Claire if you'd like to join virtually (though we'd prefer to see your face in person!)
Mar 28, 2018: SimCom presents procedures day for staff. Ultrasound-guided everything. May 8, 9-12pm. Check your email for details. Let Nadia Farooki know if interested in attending.
Mar 22, 2018: All ED staff - to help us plan, please fill out a brief 3 minute survey about how we can make POCUS valuable to you!
Mar 6, 2018: ED POCUS Education Needs assessment survey has been emailed out.