Barriers and facilitators to point-of-care ultrasound use in rural Australia

Annie C. Arnold, Richard Fleet, David Lim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study explores the barriers and facilitators to point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) use and adoption in rural healthcare since POCUS is a useful resource for rural clinicians to overcome the challenges associated with limited on-site clinical support, such as limited diagnostic imaging services and infrastructure. A qualitative descriptive study was employed, interviews with ten rural clinicians were conducted, and the data were analysed using the Walt and Gilson health policy framework to guide interpretation. Barriers include a lack of standardised training requirements, the cost of the devices and challenges recouping the costs of purchase and training, difficulty with the maintenance of skills, and a lack of an effective method to achieve quality assurance. Coupling POCUS with telemedicine could address the issues of the maintenance of skills and quality assurance to facilitate increased POCUS use, leading to positive patient safety and social and economic implications.
Original languageEnglish
Article number5821
Number of pages9
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume20
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Keywords

  • telemedicine
  • patient transfers
  • rural medicine
  • paediatric diagnostic imaging
  • point-of-care ultrasound
  • diagnostic imaging

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