Can Untrained Patients Perform Their Own Skin and Soft Tissue Ultrasound Examination by Teleguidance?

Ammar Saati; Arthur Au; Aditi U. Joshi; Rebecca Davis; Frances Mae West; Resa E. Lewiss – The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic accelerated the use of telehealth with consumer adoption increasing from 11% in 2019 to 46% in 2020 [1,2]. A telehealth visit often replaced an in-person office visit for infection control and safety to the patient and healthcare team. Telehealth, the use of technology for remote medical encounters, can be an efficient way to connect doctor and patient synchronously or asynchronously. “Store and forward,” a form of asynchronous telemedicine utilizes uploaded pictures by patients for evaluation by a clinician. This aids the patient evaluation and improves the diagnostic capacity of a virtual examination.

Accelerated Remote Consultation Tele-POCUS in Cardiopulmonary Assessment (ARCTICA)

Jeffrey Lam, MD; Sherwin Wong, BHSc MD; Nicholas Grubic, BScH; Salwa Nihal, MD(MBBS) MPhil MSc; Julia E. Herr, MSc; Daniel J. Belliveau, MD; Stephen Gauthier, MD; Steven J. Montague, MD; Amer M. Johri MD MSc FRCPC FASE – The ability of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) to provide rapid and accurate bedside assessment of both the heart and lungs allows it to be a powerful tool in the management of patients presenting with dyspnea. However, while ultrasound equipment is readily available even in remote healthcare settings in Canada, physicians lack effective training opportunities to develop expertise in this potentially life-saving skill.