Ryan Hebbler
FUJIFIILM Sonosite employees are passionate about many things, helping people is at the top of the list. As is the case for Ryan Hebbler, our Director of Strategic Accounts, which means helping customers, colleagues, clinicians, and everyone else he deals with. He's passionate about ultrasound, and it shows.
Carena Holmes
Carena Holmes, senior systems engineer sees the big picture and the details. She is always thinking about how to improve our systems and how teams can work more harmoniously. When asked about her favourite project, she replies with a secretive smile, but that just goes to show how interesting the work she's doing is. She's a creative thinker and a passionate advocate for her work. And like most Sonositers, she's also passionate about her music. Check out her top 5 all-time favourite songs here:
I Wanna Dance with Somebody – Whitney Houston
Humble- Kendrick Lamar
Kiss- Prince and the…
Keith Williams
Keith Williams, Executive Director of Programme Management at FUJIFILM Sonosite, is celebrating his 25th anniversary with the company. When asked what keeps him coming back, Williams said, "It's the people. I get to work with some phenomenally talented and passionate people who are dedicated to making a difference in the world. And the products we make have a really important role to play in that." In addition to his work at FUJIFILM Sonosite, Williams is also a passionate music fan. He shared his top 5 songs of all time with, which you can enjoy below.
David Bowie - Heroes (Live Aid, 1985…
From the CEO: Find Work that Matters
Find Work that Matters at FUJIFILM SonositeLife is finite, which makes time our most precious commodity.The COVID pandemic has taken this concept and dropped it right in the lap of millions of working people in this country. “Why am I spending the majority of my waking hours doing this work, and is that how I want to spend the time I have left on this planet?” Welcome to the Great Resignation.The management consulting firm McKinsey & Company conducted a survey in 2021 and found that nearly two-thirds of US-based employees surveyed said that COVID-19 has caused them to reflect on their…
From the CEO: Core Values
Core Values: A focus on HOW we face challenges together
The last few years have challenged us all. They’ve made us think deeply about what matters in our lives. Many have been faced with choices they never dreamed they’d have to make, especially in the early days of the pandemic. Do I work and risk illness or possibly death, or expose my loved ones to the same? Do I stop working and possibly lose my home? If you own or run a business, do you remain open in an effort to keep your team employed or do you shut down to reduce the spread of disease?
There’s only one measure by which we can make…
Top 10 Perioperative Applications of Point-of-Care Ultrasound for Anaesthesiologists
OR Today
Davinder S. Ramsingh, MD
With the release on May 30, 2019 of the final report from the Federal government’s Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force, anaesthesiologists need specific case studies on how to implement recommendations in their hospitals. This OR Today article, published by Davinder S. Ramsingh, MD, Director of Research and Perioperative Ultrasound at Loma Linda University Medical Centre, Department of Anaesthesiology, shares ten applications of point-of-care ultrasound, a modality mentioned in Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) and Enhanced Recovery After…
New Government Recommendations Advance Interventional Approaches to Improve Pain Management
With the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issuing a Request for Information on ways to address the treatment of acute and chronic pain, and the treatment of substance use disorders including opioid use disorder, it is an appropriate time to focus on new recommendations contained in a report issued by the U.S. Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force. These recommendations are aimed at increasing access to and greater use of interventional procedures for perioperative pain control. Interventional procedures include various non-opioid medications, ultrasound-…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Frances Chow
Anesthesiologist Dr. Frances Chow works to bring ultrasound-guided nerve blocks to British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, BC, Canada. British Columbia Cancer Agency has among the best cancer outcomes in the world, including highest of the G7 countries for childhood leukemia, and second highest survival rates across 67 countries for prostate and breast cancer.[1]
BC Cancer covers the entire spectrum of cancer care, from prevention and screening to diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. They operate six regional cancer centers and are dedicated to finding the causes of cancer, and…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Jennifer Hanko
Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is widely used in nephrology for guiding the creation of fistulas and informing decisions on their viability and performance for dialysis. Dr. Jennifer Hanko is a consultant nephrologist at Belfast City Hospital, a 900-bed modern university teaching hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Here, she explains the impact of POCUS on her clinical practise and describes the benefits, for both staff and patients, of using POCUS.I originally learned to use ultrasound for vascular mapping and arteriovenous (AV) fistula assessment during a fellowship in…
Pain Management Alternatives for Women
Gender differences based on culturally defined roles create unique issues for women with respect to pain and opioid addiction and misuse. A report issued earlier this summer by the U.S. Pain Management Best Practises Inter-Agency Task Force, “Pain Management Best Practises: Updates, Gaps, Inconsistencies, and Recommendations”, focuses on issues related to women as part of its extensive review of how acute and chronic pain are treated in this country.
The Task Force report indicates that women are more likely than men to misuse prescription opioids. Furthermore, from 1999 to 2010, the…
MSK Pain and Prescribing Opioids
A new study published by the National Institutes of Health’s Journal of Pain reveals that first-time patients suffering from chronic MSK pain are prescribed opioids more often than non-drug treatments. Researchers analysed data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey between 2007 and 2015. The data came from 11,994 visits over the 9-year period.
They found that these patients were prescribed non-opioid drugs 40.2% of the time, with opioids being prescribed 21.5% of the time. In contrast, non-drug treatments (such as counseling, exercise programmes, diet and nutrition advice, and…
Financial Impact of ERAS Programme
OR Today Magazine
Philip Corvo, MD, MA, FACS, and Wesley Knauft, MD
Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS)
is a paradigm shift in perioperative care that can benefit both hospitals and their patients. In this article published in OR Today by Philip Corvo, MD, MA, FACS, and Wesley Knauft, MD, they share a case study about their experience at Saint Mary’s Hospital, Trinity Health Of New England, a 347-bed acute care community teaching hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut, regarding the clinical and financial benefits of an ERAS programme that includes Ultrasound Guided Regional Anaesthesia (…
Medical Device Warranties: Fine Print, Major Total Cost Implications
Becker's Hospital CFO Report
Rich Fabian, Chief Operation Officer, FUJIFILM Sonosite
Most of us think of warranties as a way to save money because they reduce the possibility of spending money in the future. This article from FUJIFILM Sonosite’s Chief Operating Officer, Rich Fabian, outlines that not all warranties are created equal and this could have implications for the total cost of owning an ultrasound system over its lifetime. The article shares how the fine print of a warranty document can matter, particularly as it relates to what items are expected from the warranty. In the case of…
POCUS Goes Airborne for Helicopter Rescue
Emergency doctor Dr. Didier Moens is in charge of rescue missions in the Centre Médical Héliporté (CMH) of Bra sur Lienne, near Liège in Belgium. He believes access to point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) on emergency helicopters is now essential for improving the care of critically ill patients:
“I’ve worked in emergency medicine for over 20 years, specialising in pre-hospital care. Our helicopter rescues allow us to reach accidents and emergencies swiftly, and transport patients quickly to the nearest adequate hospital—whether that’s from patients’ homes or workplaces, the scene of a road…
A Time to Reflect: Sonosite PX Celebrates a Year to Remember
Anniversaries are times to celebrate, but also times to reflect. At FUJIFILM Sonosite, we’re thrilled to recognise the one-year anniversary of the launch of Sonosite PX, our next generation point-of-care ultrasound system (POCUS) with the most advanced image clarity ever seen in a Sonosite system.As we mark the one-year milestone of bringing Sonosite PX to market, we want to reflect on just a few of the significant achievements that our robust POCUS system is credited with during this past year.For starters, Sonosite PX made its entrance during one of the most challenging times for healthcare…
User Stories: Spreading Point-of-Care Ultrasound to the Philippines
West Virginia University Department of Emergency Medicine Ultrasound fellow, Kristine S. Robinson, M.D. is taking Point of Care Ultrasound (PoCUS) to the international level by residing in Metro Manila, Philippines for a month, equipped with a Sonosite Edge machine from Sonosite’s Global Health Programme. Dr. Robinson volunteered her time and expertise as a visiting physician at St. Luke’s Medical Centre – Quezon City (SLMC-QC), spending time with their Emergency Department residents and staff to teach instructive and hands-on sessions, and accompany residents on scanning shifts. …
POCUS Profile: Dr. Nathaniel Meuser-Herr
Pneumonia is a major cause of childhood mortality and morbidity globally – particularly in resource-poor environments – and diagnosis of pneumonia can be complex. The current gold standard diagnostic technique is a chest X-ray, looking for the presence or absence of areas of consolidation on the lungs. However X-ray facilities are not always available in remote locations.
Dr. Nathaniel Meuser-Herr led a University of Minnesota research project to investigate the potential of point-of-care ultrasound as an alternative tool for the diagnosis of pneumonia in paediatric patients in Uganda, and…
Consider All Ultrasound Machine Costs of Ownership
When making a high investment in medical equipment it is important not only to compare the price and quality of each product, in these cases it begins to be necessary to analyse the total cost of ownership (TCO) during the useful life of the equipment, since it could happen that the indirect costs exceed the sale price, plus all the additional problems that can even lead to damage to the reputation of the hospital.In recent medical meetings, the TCO and the indirect costs that constitute it are being debated. Some of these costs to consider are technical service and repairs, although software…
Dr. David Chaparro - Bringing clarity in the most difficult environments
Dr. David Chaparro, in addition to working as an emergency doctor at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid, also participates in humanitarian aid projects in some of the poorest countries in the world, treating patients, training other professionals in the use of bedside ultrasound (POCUS), and demonstrating how it improves patient care in the most difficult settings:
“I was lucky to discover ultrasound quite early in my career, now I use it every day in my daily work. It is a fundamental tool that complements the anamnesis and the physical examination, guiding the request for…
Setting Up a Point-of-Care Ultrasound Programme in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Drawing on Dr. Jae Kim’s experience with implementing and leading POCUS programmes in two U.S. children’s hospitals, this article provides a five-step roadmap to adoption of this imaging modality to improve the safety and quality of care in the NICU. Physician training, the most active uses, and opportunities for POCUS in neonatal medicine and case examples are discussed. The article also provides guidance on selecting a point-of-care ultrasound system for neonatology.
ICUManagement_NeonatalPOCUS_Jan2021.pdf