Tablet vs. station-based laptop ultrasound devices increases internal medicine resident point-of-care ultrasound performance: a prospective cohort study

Background Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is becoming an important part of internal medicine (IM) residency training. Achieving competency requires performing a large volume of clinical exams which can be difficult within the constraints of residency. Often-cited barriers include insufficient resident time and the interruption of daily workflow. Despite availability of hospital station-based laptop ultrasound machines, we hypothesized that the addition of ward team-based tablet ultrasound devices would lower barriers and increase clinical POCUS volume within an IM residency POCUS curriculum at a 670-bed, quaternary care, teaching hospital. IM resident POCUS volumes and characteristics during an 18-mo. baseline (station-based laptop devices only) period were compared to matched months during the intervention (station-based + tablet). Results Total patients examined with POCUS by 6 inpatient resident teams during the 18-mo. baseline and intervention periods were 1386 and 1853, respectively. Patients examined per month increased during the intervention by 34% (77 vs. 103, p = 0.002). The number of areas (e.g., abdominal, cardiac) and items (e.g., bladder, pericardial effusion) examined per month increased by 27% (p = 0.021) and 23% (p = 0.073), respectively. Conclusions A combined program infrastructure of station-based laptop and "in-the-pocket" tablet ultrasound devices lowered common POCUS barriers of inadequate time and workflow disruption for IM residents and resulted in a meaningful increase of exams within a longitudinal residency-based training program where station-based laptop devices already existed.