Sonosite Patient Safety: Reducing Risk and Cost of Interventional Procedures
As point-of-care ultrasound becomes more common, hospital administrators across the world are understanding that bedside ultrasound can do more than provide patients with real-time diagnosis and increase satisfaction scores – it can also make patients safer.As we travel across the United States at our Patient Safety Education events in cities like Houston, Atlanta and Seattle, Sonosite will be discussing solutions and strategies for increasing patient safety. We’re inviting members of the healthcare community to learn how point-of-care ultrasound can help make patients safer by…
Fujifilm Design Studio: Sonosite SII Wins Silver at International Design Excellence Awards
Last year, Craig Chamberlain and his team of designers traveled around the world – over 101,964 miles, to be exact – meeting clinicians in hospitals and clinics to observe how they use point-of-care ultrasound. Chamberlain is the Director of Experience Design at FUJIFILM Sonosite, heading up a team of Industrial, Experience, and Human Factors designers, and this type of “user-oriented” observation is part of Sonosite’s unique design process.“We’re extremely excited to have won the Silver at IDEA 2016,” said Chamberlain. “This award shows that we created an ultrasound system that achieved our…
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…
Hospitals Must Integrate Imaging Technology to Avoid Cuts to Medicare Payment
In her View from the Hill article, Jill Rathbun of the Galileo Consulting Group summarizes the recent annual Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPac) report and explains how implementing a point of care ultrasound program can align health care delivery with the goals and themes of the report.
Each year MedPAC provides guidance to Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on payments for the Medicare programs. This year's report includes the following themes:
Payment accuracy and encouraging efficiency
Care coordination and quality
Broadening information…
Hospitals Must Integrate Imaging Technology to Avoid Cuts to Medicare Payments
HealthCare Business News
Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA
In this View from the Hill article for DOTmed News, Jill Rathbun discusses the Fiscal Year 2017 Proposed Inpatient Hospital Rule and how imaging, in particular ultrasound, can play an important role in achieving fewer complications and higher quality of care scores in CMS payment programs.
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MedPAC and What We Can Learn Regarding the Use of Ultrasound to Guide Procedures
HealthCare Business News
Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA
In this View from the Hill article for DOTmed News, Jill Rathbun discusses how incorporating ultrasound into healthcare delivery may assist health systems to align with MedPAC's annual March report objectives.
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Education and the Sonosite iViz: Professor Alistair Royse
Professor Alistair Royse believes in the power of disruptive innovation.The Sonosite iViz is playing a crucial role in his education programs.At the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, Cardiothoracic Surgeon Prof. Alistair Royse was one of the earliest adopters of the Sonosite iViz. He uses the machine on a daily basis, not only in his clinical practice, but also in his innovative clinical ultrasound education programs at the University of Melbourne. He sees ultrasound technology as the kind of disruptive innovation that will change the way healthcare is delivered.“True…
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…
POC Ultrasound Testing Speeds Diagnosis, Safety at the Bedside
Physicians today face a multitude of ever evolving challenges, and one thing we’ve seen is an increase in the demand for educational sessions covering the latest in ultrasound. Dr. Keith Boniface from the George Washington University School of Medicine talked to Healio.com at the American College of Physicians Internal Medicine Meeting on why ultrasound education and learning is so critical. One of the things that has led to an increased demand for this type of course this year is that we are pressured as clinicians to make diagnoses more rapidly and less invasively. A lot of…
Ultrasound Helps Reduce a $373 Million-Dollar Risk: Medicare Penalties for Hospital Errors
Becker's Hospital CFO
Haney Mallemat, MD Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Dr. Mallemat discusses the impact and expansion of the CMS Hospital Acquired Conditions payment program in patient care as well as overall Medicare payments to hospitals. He also explains the role of point-of-care ultrasound at his hospital to assist in lowering complications and costs associated with central lines.
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Passion for Patient Care Revolutionizes Vascular Access
How can ultrasound guidance help nurses insert IVs?
“Anyone who ever sat through nurses making multiple IV needle sticks understands the value of ultrasound-guided vascular access, but this goes much deeper than an annoying hour trying to draw a few vials of blood or an arm that is bruised for a day or two,” said Vascular Access Coordinator Matthew Ostroff. When St. Joseph’s Health Care System - one of the busiest hospitals in the country - first introduced their ultrasound-guided vascular access program they didn’t realize what a huge difference the…
6 Steps to Implementing Ultrasound in Critical Care
by Nidhi Nikhanj, MD
In this article for Health Management Magazine, Dr. Nidhi Nikhanj lays out the path for a system-wide implementation of point-of-care ultrasound to bring quality of care and enhanced patient safety to the bedside. What 6 steps should a large health system use to successfully implement point-of-care ultrasound?
Read the full article from Health Management Magazine to find out!
Ultrasound Technology Designed for MSK, Developing a Positive Image
In an article by FUJIFILM Sonosite's own Bill Medford, RDMS, RMSKS, Lead Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Specialist, he explains how as a clinical expert with over 17 years of experience, he sees the advances in ultrasound and in particular the X-Porte's significant contribution to the practice of musculoskeletal (MSK) medicine.
With new breakthroughs in technology and the increasing interest in improving diagnostic capability at the point-of-care, the X-Porte's design and image quality is intended to meet the demands of healthcare providers.
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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 of the Shoulder, Part 1
The American Journal of Orthopedics
Alan M. Hirahara, MD, FRCS(C), and Alberto J. Panero, DO
In the first of a three part series for the American Journal of Orthopedics, Drs Alan Hirahara, MD, FRCS(C) and Alberto Panero, DO discuss the advantages of diagnostic and ultrasound guided procedures in the shoulder.
The article explains that the use of ultrasound at the point of care is growing in orthopedics and offers dynamic, real-time evaluation and safe, accurate treatment of conditions or injuries in the office. The ability for ultrasound to guide …
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…
Rotterdam, Netherlands ambulance paramedics trained to diagnose AAA condition in transport
Amsterdam, 19th of January 2016.
[This is translated to English from the Netherland’s news paper]
The ambulances in Rotterdam Netherlands during the coming 5 months are equipped with ultrasound imaging that could be life saving with people with an AAA.
Special ambulance paramedics are trained to use ultrasound to be able to diagnose AAA condition quicker and more accurately. This pilot is unique in the Netherlands and initiative from vascular surgeon Jerome van Brussel from the Sint Franciscus Hospital. He and his colleagues from other regional hospitals in Rotterdam…