Ultrasound assessment of patients in shock is becoming the standard of care in emergency and critical care settings worldwide. One of the most common protocols used for this assessment is the rapid ultrasound in shock (RUSH) examination. The RUSH protocol is a rapid evaluation of cardiac function, key vascular structures, and likely sources of hypotension. Stroke volume is an established important value to assess in the setting of shock, allowing the provider to predict the patient's response to treatment. However, the calculation of stroke volume or its surrogates is not part of any protocol, including RUSH. We propose the addition of ultrasound calculation of stroke volume or surrogates to the RUSH protocol and provide support for its utility and relative ease of calculation. The resulting product would be the RUSH velocity-time integral protocol.
Keywords: point-of-care ultrasound; rapid ultrasound in shock; shock; stroke volume; ultrasound; velocity-time integral.
© 2015 by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.