ACEP EUS Industry Round Table Subcommittee Update

Rob Ferre, MD, FACEP and Lori Stolz, MD

The ACEP EUS Industry Round Table (IRT) is a subcommittee that works directly with our industry partners to improve emergency ultrasound. We provide a collective voice for emergency ultrasound section members to industry leaders on what needs to be developed, modified and improved. Each year we survey section members on what we believe are the most important issues. We then present these results to industry leaders during the annual IRT that occurs during Scientific Assembly. The last 3 years of presentations of the IRT to industry leaders can be found at www.pocusworkflow.com. Links to additional resources, such as the Ultrasound Machine Feature List (that compares the features and base pricing of different cart-based and handheld ultrasound machines) and the Ultrasound Director Toolkit, can also be found at the bottom of the www.pocusworkflow.com website.

Over the past couple of years, the IRT has been focusing on workflows for POCUS. A year ago, we formed the “ACEP IHE Workflow Workgroup,” a workgroup with workflow experts from ACEP and IHE International to develop a technical standard for POCUS workflows. IHE develops “profiles” that provide technical specifications for interoperability across different software platforms. Once developed, these profiles become the technical documents that engineers use to ensure one software program can appropriately interact with others (eg, data points in the patient information screen that are mapped to a workflow product, like Qpath). Our industry partners are also a part of the workgroup and are beginning to use this consensus building work to design new ultrasound systems to help improve our workflow (eg, a patient information screen that is streamlined and POCUS specific). To learn more about this work and the basics of a POCUS workflow, we created www.pocusworkflow.com, to provide tools to our section members and our industry partners. As a first step to improving our workflow, in the past year we have committed each POCUS vendor to creating a “2-click” process with a barcode scanner that allows patient information to be retrieved and entered on the first click and the operator information to be entered in on the second click. Handheld vendors have similarly committed to a process using the camera function to capture patient information (either MRN or visit number) to autopopulate the patient information screen.

The IRT has also worked to create a framework for developing AI and other assistive technologies that include 6 domains: Educational, Clinical, Workflow, Administrative, Predictive and Research. We hope this engages our industry partners to use AI and other assistive technologies to improve all aspects of POCUS education and clinical use. Aspects of this framework are still undergoing development and were part of the SCUF Technology Summit a couple of months ago.

This year the IRT is working to develop 1) consensus recommendations to industry on fleet management systems and 2) standardized language surrounding infection prevention in the “manufacturer’s instructions for use” in collaboration with the safety and infection prevention subcommittee. We have also introduced two new awards, including the “Don Nisler Innovation Award” to recognize industry leaders for collaboration with the EUS. We are also continuing our work with the Emerging Technologies Subcommittee to mentor younger colleagues to eventually join the IRT and continue building our relationship with our industry partners.