A first look you can get before the workup comes back.
Undifferentiated hypotension, arrest, and the crash airway are where an ultrasound exam has to survive chaos. EASy starts at the one window that usually does.
The patients who need bedside ultrasound most arrive undifferentiated: hypotensive, dyspneic, or both, with no history and no time. The differential is long, the empiric options conflict, and the first management decision often has to be made before any confirmatory test returns.
Point-of-care ultrasound is the obvious answer, but image quality depends heavily on the operator — and across a real emergency department group, sonography skill varies widely. A protocol only helps the department if its floor, not just its ceiling, is high enough to act on.
Acquire. Phenotype. Act.
Acquire
The exam is built on the subcostal window — the view that most often survives chest compressions, drapes, and the ventilated chest — plus IVC and anterior lung views, all on the single phased-array probe already in your machine.
Phenotype
Instead of a list of maybes, heart, IVC, and lung findings resolve into one of ten hemodynamic phenotypes — a working answer to "why is this patient hypotensive?" you can say out loud on the resuscitation timeout.
Act
Each phenotype maps to a defined management pathway: what to give, what to hold, and when the focused exam is not enough and escalation to fuller imaging is required.
Where EASy fits in your department
Undifferentiated hypotension — EASy MAP
The core protocol: six views, ten phenotypes, and a BP = CO × SVR rule-out worksheet for the shocked patient.
ExploreCardiac arrest — EASy ALS
Reversible causes during CPR from the subcostal window, structured to respect the pulse check rather than prolong it.
ExploreThe physiologically difficult airway — EASy PDA
A pre-induction phenotype for the patient who may not tolerate your induction plan.
ExploreAverage examination time for novice sonographers in the published comparison. A protocol that costs a quarter of the time gets repeated when the patient changes.
Fiorini & Basmaji, Can J Anaesth 2022After one day of focused training, novice residents obtained images sufficient for supervised clinical decision-making in 87% of 63 examinations — averaging 4.3 minutes each. Day one is about acquisition; interpretation stays supervised.
Crit Care Explor 2024Take it to the bedside
Free bedside cards
Print-ready phenotype and resuscitation reference for your department's machines.
OpenFree weekly scenario
One real, de-identified clinical scenario open to everyone, rotating every Monday.
OpenPhenotype drill
Timed pattern-recognition reps on real clips — the skill that makes the exam fast.
OpenEASy ALS bedside tool
membersRun the arrest exam with a live code log and a copyable session report.
OpenTrain your team to read the unstable patient
Live, case-based courses for clinicians at every level — and a supervised pathway for programs building a POCUS curriculum.
Critical Care Anesthesiology Hospital Medicine Programs & Educators