FAST Pads: Facilitating pre-hospital FAST ultrasounds

Student Team

Master of Engineering: Chung-Fu Sun, Xinyue Hu, Paul Reddy, Aniket Khanna
Undergraduates: Nina Soofi, Nisha Janamanchi, Shelby Fuller, Kirinna Arora

Our solution to improve rates of prehospital FAST exams is to develop FAST Pads, a gel-based single-use set of four pads that facilitate FAST examinations from four primary windows: cardiac, right upper quadrant, left upper quadrant, and pelvic. 

Similar to a defibrillator pad, each FAST Pad will come with unique easy-to-use instructions printed directly on top of the product. Instructions will direct the user on gel-pad placement and recommended ultrasound probe positioning to improve study quality. The goal of this project is to overcome existing training and equipment barriers for EMS medical systems to utilize prehospital ultrasound. By providing intuitive instructions directly on our product, FAST Pads will improve user’s ability to obtain valuable information from FAST Ultrasound exams in the pre-hospital setting, impacting patient care and improving patient outcomes as outlined above. These pads will also incorporate such features as a tacky surface to facilitate probe placement during rough transports and the ability to mark on the pad to designate optimal angles and locations for repeated assessment during and after transport.