Report finds that governed point-of-care ultrasound could help ease NHS diagnostic pressures
A new report has highlighted how governed point-of-care ultrasound could improve patient flow, reduce pressure on radiology departments and support the NHS’s diagnostic recovery.
Significant untapped ultrasound capacity already exists across the healthcare system, according to a new whitepaper from Health Net Connections Ltd (HNC).
The Point of Care: Ultrasound at Scale Report examines how point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) could help clinicians make faster decisions at the bedside, reduce unnecessary referrals to radiology departments and improve patient flow across hospital and community care settings.
However, the paper warns that the potential value of POCUS is often limited by a lack of governance, reporting and integration with existing clinical systems.
Clinicians working in emergency departments, acute medical units, intensive care environments and community settings regularly perform focused ultrasound examinations to answer urgent clinical questions.
Many of these examinations remain disconnected from enterprise imaging systems, however, creating what the whitepaper describes as a “ghost scan” problem. This means potentially important diagnostic information may not be stored correctly, audited or incorporated into the patient’s clinical record.
According to HNC, the primary challenge facing healthcare organisations is not simply a shortage of ultrasound equipment, but the absence of effective and integrated workflows.
Elaine Connolly, Account Manager at HNC, said: “Healthcare systems have rightly invested in scanners, diagnostic hubs and expanding access to imaging, but increasing capacity alone does not solve the problem.
“Currently, ultrasound scans can be undertaken by clinical teams outside radiology, but these images are very rarely archived.
“The next phase of diagnostic transformation is about increasing the accessibility of POCUS for clinical teams while ensuring appropriate clinical governance by having examinations fully documented, accessible and auditable.
“This will support real-time clinical decisions, reduce delays to patient treatment and improve patient outcomes.”
The whitepaper argues that the future of ultrasound is likely to become increasingly distributed, bringing diagnostic capabilities closer to patients rather than requiring them to move through traditional imaging pathways.
In emergency and acute care settings, POCUS can support faster diagnoses and treatment decisions. Within critical care, it can enable ongoing bedside monitoring without patients having to be repeatedly transferred to imaging departments.
In community and pre-hospital settings, the technology also has the potential to support earlier diagnosis and more coordinated care.
To deliver these benefits at scale, the report states that healthcare organisations must embed POCUS within structured digital workflows. These workflows should support clinical reporting, image archiving, quality assurance and interoperability with existing electronic medical record and picture archiving and communication systems.
The report suggests that effective enterprise imaging infrastructure could help reduce avoidable referrals to radiology departments and improve the time taken to make decisions within acute care pathways.
It could also support patient flow, reduce length of stay and strengthen clinical governance by ensuring that examinations are properly recorded and auditable.
In addition, connected POCUS systems could generate measurable performance data that is aligned with wider NHS priorities and helps organisations understand how bedside imaging is affecting clinical and operational outcomes.
The paper emphasises that POCUS programmes should align with recognised UK training and governance frameworks, including Focused Acute Medicine Ultrasound (FAMUS), Focused Ultrasound in Intensive Care (FUSIC) and Royal College of Emergency Medicine ultrasound pathways.
It also highlights the importance of complying with relevant NHS clinical safety standards.
As integrated care systems continue to focus on diagnostic recovery, elective care performance and delivering care closer to home, the report suggests that governed POCUS programmes could become an increasingly important part of the NHS imaging strategy.
Elaine added: “The opportunity is not simply to deploy more devices. It is to create a scalable, governed imaging capability that supports clinicians, improves operational performance and helps healthcare organisations make better use of limited resources.”
The whitepaper concludes that organisations which successfully integrate point-of-care ultrasound into enterprise imaging workflows will be better positioned to address diagnostic backlogs, improve patient flow and develop a more sustainable model for diagnostic services.
