Martucciello, Ginamarie & Horton, Michelle. A virtual lecture with hands-on simulation of the gastric ultrasound examination. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-pa3s-jw73
DescriptionPurpose: Pulmonary aspiration is an anesthesia-related complication that carries significant morbidity and mortality. The current preventive strategy against aspiration is the Nil-Per-Os (NPO) guidelines, yet there are a variety of situations that decrease the reliability of this evaluation tool. Gastric ultrasound (GUS) is a non-invasive technique to determine the prandial status in a patient with a questionable NPO status, however this is a tool that is not readily utilized in daily practice. The goal is to determine if a thirty-minute comprehensive, didactic virtual lecture with hands-on demonstration will increase anesthesia providers competency and confidence in using GUS.
Method: In this prospective, quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study, we gave 117 anesthesia providers at a state’s professional biannual virtual conference and doctorly-prepared nurse anesthesia residents at a monthly program meeting a 30-minute virtual didactic lecture on the GUS examination along with a demonstration. Participant’s confidence and competence in image recognition and identification of the gastric antrum’s contents before and after the intervention was assessed through pre- and post-intervention tests.
Results: After a single comprehensive 30-minute virtual lecture and demonstration, anesthesia providers and Resident Registered Nurse Anesthetists (RRNAs) are able to quickly increase their confidence and competence in gastric ultrasound image recognition.
Implications: GUS image recognition is easily learned and can be an invaluable tool to the anesthesia provider. Obtaining baseline knowledge may increase the likelihood of participants to use this tool in their practice.