Portable Ultrasound Machine for International Medical Missions
Dr. Russell Engevik is an emergency room physician from California who volunteers with Lighthouse Medical Missions.He recently sent a video showing us how he utilizes a borrowed Sonosite iViz while working with patients in the hospital in the small fishing village of Tanji, The Gambia.The Gambia is a resource-poor nation in West Africa with an economy that relies primarily upon tourism. Less than 6% of the land is arable, and the main crop grown in the country is peanuts.The Gambia is nearly entirely surrounded by the country of Senegal, except for the section that is bordered by the Atlantic…
Global Health: FUJIFILM Sonosite Donates Ultrasound Systems to Refugee Rescue Organization
FUJIFILM Sonosite has donated two M-Turbo point-of-care ultrasound systems to the non-governmental sea rescue organization Proactiva Open Arms, based in Badalona, Spain, to support efforts in rescuing refugees.Proaativa Open Arms specializes in surveillance and rescue missions of refugee-filled boats in the Aegean and Central Mediterranean seas. People fleeing civil war, poverty, and persecution in their own countries have headed for Southern European shores. Boats that break down in the water are abandoned by the operators (usually smugglers) and refugees are left stranded in the…
Sonosite Edge II at the 2017 Gaes Titan Desert Race
The Gaes Titan Desert by Garmin is a 6-day endurance bike race over mountain terrain; the 2017 edition takes place in Morocco. From April 30-May 5, the Titan Desert saw over 463 top-level mountain bikers cover 380 miles of unyielding desert in gruelling conditions.Dr. Marc Bausili, an anesthetist at the Sant Pau Hospital in Barcelona and a member of the Titan Desert medical team, knew what kind of injuries would be the most common, and what kind of equipment would be the most useful.“We knew from our experience of similar events,” says Bausili, “that with so many participants, and the…
Global Health: Ultrasound Expands Access and Improves Maternal Care
Every day, 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. 99% live in rural areas. Many of them could be prevented with proper maternal care including ultrasound imaging during their pregnancy and delivering in a medical clinic. Of those deaths, 40% are due to injuries or conditions related to placenta complications - and the only way to detect abnormal placenta challenges is through an ultrasound exam.A few years ago, Sonosite partnered with Qualcomm Wireless Reach, Trice Imaging Inc., and Sony to create the Mobile Ultrasound Patrol project, a trial…
The Range of POCUS: Emergency Rooms to Vascular Access to Intensive Care Training
Did you know that Sonosite’s first mission was to create an ultrasound machine that could be carried into battle? The concept was simple: Get treatment to a trauma victim by giving a frontline clinician an ultrasound machine that could be brought to the patient’s side. Now point-of-care ultrasound is used around the world for an ever growing variety of clinical applications and procedures. Here's three user stories of how Sonosite systems have helped clinicians expand the range of what's possible using portable ultrasound. Quick and Acurate Vascular AccessThe Children’s Acute…
User Stories: Madrid's Emergency Services and Portable Ultrasound
Since point-of-care ultrasound systems were originally designed for dealing with emergencies in a battlefield setting, it's not surprising that ultrasound now plays a pivotal role in emergency vehicles around the world. Dr Ramón de Elías Hernandez, head of on-call doctors at SAMUR, Madrid’s municipal emergency service, describes the advantages that point-of-care ultrasound brings to his everyday life.
"I've been an ambulance doctor for the Servicio de Asistencia Municipal de Urgencia y Rescate (SAMUR) in Madrid for 20 years, 10 of those as head of on-call doctors. My day job is to…
User Stories: St. Joseph's Reduces Time and Cost with POCUS Vascular Access
If you had to choose between inserting a PICC line (40-45 minutes) and inserting a PIV with ultrasound guidance (5-10 minutes), which would you choose to perform? What if your patient weighed less than 5 lbs? Or more than 500?
When you’re working with some of the smallest, most vulnerable patients, every single needle stick matters more than ever. Whether injecting critical medicine or drawing blood, St. Joseph’s Healthcare System in Paterson, New Jersey, strives to minimize patient pain during needle insertion.
“Before we had the Sonosite ultrasound technology, we had a lot of patients…
Reducing The Opioid Epidemic with POC Ultrasound
Every day, 91 Americans die from opioid (prescription drugs or heroin) overdoses. This is the worst drug epidemic in the history of the United States.
How can emergency physicians help patients manage pain without accidentally getting them addicted to prescription opioids?
While federal and local governments have been slow to respond to this health crisis, individual hospitals and medical centers have launched their own initiatives to begin tackling the problem of opioid abuse. Recognizing that prescription opiates are often the first step toward opioid addiction, St. Joseph’s Health Care…
Integrating Ultrasound Services Into Your Practice - Five Reasons December 2016 Could Be The Right Time
Becker's Hospital Review
Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA
Since the election there have been many articles written discussing the future of the Affordable Care Act under a President-Elect Trump Administration and a Republican Congress. It is important that physicians and office administrators understand the real impact by reading this article.
Beckers Integrating Ultrasound 1216.pdf
User Stories: A Clear Path for Ambulatory Care
The Clinique Juge is a Marseille clinic specialising in ambulatory surgery. Combining regional anaesthesia with focused pre- and post-operative care, the clinic aims to allow patients to return home soon after orthopaedic surgery, often on the same day as their procedure. Anaesthetist Dr Philippe Grillo explains the benefits of this approach, and the role of point-of-care ultrasound in ensuring effective nerve blocks and post-operative pain relief."We treat around 15,000 patients a year, and have been using regional anaesthesia for approximately eight years to accelerate post-operative…
User Stories: Spreading Point-of-Care Ultrasound Hospital-Wide
What departments are the heaviest users of point-of-care ultrasound in an American-based hospital?The answer varies from hospital to hospital, but we usually see Emergency Medicine, Cardiology, Critical Care and Anaesthesiology rounding out the heavyweight users of bedside ultrasound.But what happens when a hospital wants to bring point-of-care ultrasound to different departments with different clinical applications? And what happens when a hospital wants point-of-care ultrasound in every department? With every doctor?If you’re in Germany, that hospital would be the Evangelisches Krankenhaus…
Fujifilm Sonosite’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Diku Mandavia Interviewed by Health Exec Magazine
Dr. Diku Mandavia recently sat down to talk shop with Health Exec Magazine. As the Chief Medical Officer for both FUJIFILM Medical Systems and FUJIFILM Sonosite, Dr. Mandavia is a busy man. His path to his current role started in Canada (he went to med school in Newfoundland) and performed his residency at LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he recognized the value of ultrasound in the emergency medicine setting.
As he tells Health Exec:
“It was a lightbulb moment for me,” Mandavia says. “This technology was going to have a big impact on patient care. Previously, many of these…
Supporting Homeless Veterans with Sonosite iViz Portable Ultrasound
It’s one of the central pillars of the United States military: You don’t leave a fellow soldier behind. That ethos pushed five Vietnam veterans, Jack Lyon, Bill Mahedy, Randy Waite, Paul Grasso, and Russ Kelly, to a breaking point in 1981 when they founded Vietnam Veterans of San Diego, a nationally recognized leader in serving homeless military veterans. As their history page shows, “they were struggling with the traumas of war and looking to enhance services from the VA that were available to them at that time. They were sitting around a group counseling session, talking seriously…
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 Program. Dr. Robinson volunteered her time and expertise as a visiting physician at St. Luke’s Medical Center – 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. She…
LIG Global Uses Sonosite Ultrasound in the Dominican Republic
By Raghu Thunga, M.D., COO, LIG Global FoundationLIG Global Foundation is a not-for-profit public global charity dedicated to helping provide proper healthcare to the underprivileged. In our recent trip to Dajabon in the Dominican Republic, we utilized the Sonosite portable ultrasound to assist our work. We saw over 150 patients and performed a multitude of surgical procedures, with the Sonosite M-Turbo ultrasound device being critical to our work. Since there was a scarcity of analgesic medication to treat pain for our postoperative patients, we relied upon…
Mobility and the Sonosite iViz: Gold Coast University Hospital
Read how one of Australia’s largest emergency departments, the Gold Coast University Hospital is utilizing the Sonosite iViz.Dr. Stuart Watkins works in one of the largest and busiest emergency departments in Australia averaging over 300 patients a day. “When working in a department the size of something like three football fields, you can imagine getting from A to B can require covering some distance. Being able to take a portable device wherever you go makes everyone’s working experience so much easier, and definitely more efficient.”Dr. Watkins was extremely excited to start…
User Stories: Dr. David Bahner goes on an Antarctic adventure with Sonosite iViz
Dr. David Bahner (MD, RDMS, FACEP) is an emergency medicine physician in Ohio. He took a Sonosite ultrasound system along on an expedition to Antarctica.
At the invitation of Dr. Carmine Valente, I enrolled on an expedition to the continent of Antarctica. Dr. Valente had also invited three radiologists, Dr. Brian Coley (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital), Dr. Torben Loretzen, and Dr. Christian Nolsoe. We flew into Buenos Aires Argentina and then flew to Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world. They brand the city of Ushuaia as the Fin del Mundo or the “End of the World”. We…
Ultrasound Guidance Enables More Difficult Peripheral Vein Access
This Philly.com story on the advantages of ultrasound needle guidance and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's findings is not only informative but is written in a particularly engaging style accessible to a wide readership. An informed public goes a long way in helping to reinforce the value of clinical ultrasound's multiple benefits.Here is an excerpt from the article by Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Stacey Burling:. . . An emergency physician at George Washington University Hospital found that use of central lines, the fallback when the staff can't connect to a peripheral vein, fell…
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Takes "One Small Step for Scan..."
Ultrasound researcher and Henry Ford Hospital physician Scott Dulchavsky, MD, PhD, was recently inducted into the National Space Technology Hall of Fame for techniques his team developed to empower point-of-care ultrasound. He is working with Sonosite to modify ultrasound training methods developed for the space program for point-of-care applications on Earth.In this photo, he is using a Sonosite S-MSK to demonstrate the technology to Astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Dr. Aldrin [who holds a doctorate of science in astronautics from MIT] commented that ultrasound would be promising on future space…
FUJIFILM Sonosite goes to CES 2016 Digital Health Summit, with iViz!
FUJIFILM Sonosite attends the Digital Health Summit at CES in Las Vegas last week, to listen to Digital Health experts, feel the remarkable Digital Health evolution, and present on key topics. “One thing for sure, Digital Health is now front and center in the minds of Healthcare leaders. It is the future framework for anything Health considered, with the primary goal to empower patient and clinician to make more informed decisions, leading to improved population health management, better outcomes, and economic efficiencies.” said Marco Daoura, Director of Product Management, FUJIFILM…