Intelligent Ultrasound adds probe placement tutorial videos to its ScanNav Anatomy PNB platform.

Wednesday 28th June 2023, Cardiff, UK: Intelligent Ultrasound (IU) today announced that it has further improved its ScanNav Anatomy Peripheral Nerve Block (PNB) platform with the addition of probe placement tutorial videos to help find the right view when preparing to deliver UGRA. The new content, developed in response to customer feedback and in collaboration with users, will support clinicians in locating external anatomical landmarks to help with their initial probe positioning.

Ultrasound Guided Regional Anesthesia (UGRA) is widely used in modern anesthetic practice to deliver analgesia in the perioperative period and after trauma. It can improve patient outcomes, reduce opioid requirements and, when used for anesthesia, avoid potential side effects and complications associated with general anesthesia. Whilst ultrasound has made regional anesthesia safer, more efficient and more accessible, general anesthesiologists who have not subspecialized in regional anesthesia can find delivering the appropriate techniques challenging.

ScanNav Anatomy PNB is designed to enhance the accuracy and standardization of ultrasound image interpretation by providing a color overlay of key sono-anatomical structures during a live ultrasound scan. By standardizing ultrasound image acquisition, interpretation and helping clinicians to identify anatomical structures relevant to UGRA, ScanNav Anatomy PNB supports the wider uptake of UGRA in clinical practice. Clinicians who administer UGRA less frequently can develop knowledge and confidence, while delivering the greatest benefit to the greatest number of patients.

And that’s who will benefit from the latest updates to the ScanNav Anatomy PNB platform, clinicians new to UGRA, and those who complete plan ‘A’ or high yield blocks less frequently.

The new ScanNav Anatomy PNB probe placement tutorial videos have been developed to assist clinicians in positioning the probe correctly to ensure that the correct view is found before administering a nerve block for analgesia or anesthesia – supporting their confidence in achieving the right view and in delivering an effective block.
By following the short animated and annotated guide that highlights key anatomical landmarks, the tutorial videos ensure that the clinician is informed as to where the probe should be placed on the patient to achieve the optimal view.

The short video tutorials are shown before the colored ultrasound highlighting appears on the screen – the user simply clicks a button to proceed to scanning when they are confident that they have placed the probe in the correct position, the platform will then show the color highlighted sono-anatomy that is being scanned.

Product Manager at IU, Talia Stokes commented “We take customer and market feedback seriously. The aim, to ensure we’re delivering a platform that works for anesthetists, increasing competence and confidence and in turn the use of UGRA. We took time to evaluate use of the platform with experienced non-regional anesthetists and junior doctors on their anesthesiology rotation. We noticed that while the color overlays help all of them identify key sono-anatomical structures, ultrasound skills varied greatly across the group. There was a need for better reference material on probe positioning and how the correct view could be achieved – hence us revising our tutorial videos for those less experienced in ultrasound guided procedures”.

The future looks bright for ScanNav Anatomy PNB and UGRA. The addition of the new tutorial videos quickly follows IU receiving De Novo grant from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use of ScanNav Anatomy PNB in the USA at the back end of 2022. Used in conjunction with NeedleTrainer, IU is delivering a complete classroom to clinic package, enabling learners to develop skills and confidence with NeedleTrainer in a simulation/classroom environment, before moving into the clinical setting with ScanNav Anatomy PNB.

For more information on ScanNav Anatomy PNB, readers can click here.