Healing little hearts with the aid of Sonosite point-of-care ultrasound

Surgical teams from the UK-based charity Healing Little Hearts are using the NanoMaxx point-of-care ultrasound to help accelerate recoveries and improve outcomes for pediatric patients with congenital heart defects. Healing Little Hearts provides life-saving heart operations to babies and children across India who would not otherwise have access to treatment, as well as helping to develop local pediatric surgical programmes. Dr Sanaulla Syed, a pediatric cardiac anesthetist with the charity, commented: ‘Obtaining vascular access in small children can be difficult, and the availability of point of care ultrasound systems has revolutionized this practice. As the technology has improved, this has led to other applications, and we now use ultrasound for a range of diagnostic applications before, during and after cardiac surgery. Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia – specifically bilateral paravertebral blocks – can also significantly reduce the amount of opiates required for surgery, considerably shortening post-operative recovery times and offering improved analgesia.’

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