HIMSS15 Marks Major Changes in Health IT
The trend towards interoperability is palpable and what better way to underscore this positive movement than HIMSS 2015 conference which broke all time attendance records. FUJIFILM Sonosite is at the forefront of clinical workflow optimization and health IT interoperability. The need to connect modalities, especially Ultrasound, to EMRs and other Health IT systems is significant and FFSS is taking concrete steps to achieve this important goal. As evidenced by this direct quote, alignment amongst key industry stakeholders is the first step towards effective interoperability.
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Global Health: Teaching Ultrasound in Malawi - Dr Bergman
Global Health is more than providing medical care in resource limited countries. To create sustainable global health, four physicians from Contra Costa Family Medicine residency traveled to Malawi to do an ultrasound training for Malawian clinicians. They were kind enough to send us lots of photos and the following summary:
For the past five years, Contra Costa has taught a comprehensive point-of-care ultrasound course for its Family Medicine residents. While these skills have become quite useful in the hospital and the clinic in the US, their ultrasound skills have become…
Global Health: Teaching Ultrasound in El Salvador
It is sometimes easy to forget how privileged we are to have access to modern conveniences, healthcare technologies and services. Fortunately, at Sonosite, we enjoy supporting many adventurous care providers who share their skills in resource limited countries. One such Doctor is Dr Jennifer Chao. Upon her return from El Salvador we received this informative email:
On May 19 and 20th, twenty-one physicians in El Salvador participated in a 2 day pediatric bedside ultrasound course at Benjamin Bloom Children's Hospital in San Salvador, El Salvador. This is the fourth time that such a course…
Global Health: Kiwi Doctors Use Ultrasound to Help Save Boy in Rural Indonesia
Returning to try and save Thomas: A 5 year old boy in the final stages of heart failure in Indonesia. To watch the news video report click here: http://tvnz.co.nz/seven-sharp/he-could-walk-indonesian-child-s-miracle-turnaround-after-kiwi-doctors-intervene-video-6309161 Dr Tom Mulholland is the Senior Medical Officer, Department of Emergency Medicine, Auckland City Hospital. He is also an Honorary Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, University of Auckland Taken from the mission page of www.drtomonamission.com Dr Caroline Meadows and I are heading…
Global Health: Dr. Wes Wallace - La Moskitia, Honduras
La Mosquitia has the largest wilderness area in Central America, consisting of mangrove swamps, lagoons, rivers, savannas and tropical rain forests. Manatees, tapirs and jaguars all still thrive here – they have learnt to be circumspect around man, and they may not be easy to spot. Crocodiles can be seen in the waters.
Access to healthcare is made difficult due to geographic make-up of the region. There are few healthcare structures in existence, and those that do exist are often deprived of a doctor, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. By virtue of geography and socio-…
Deep Needle Procedures: Abstract, Interview and Article
Promoting patient safety and increasing health care quality have dominated the health care landscape during the last 15 years. Health care regulators and payers are now tying patient safety outcomes and best practices to hospital reimbursement. Many health care leaders are searching for new technologies that not only make health care for patients safer but also reduce overall health care costs. New advances in ultrasonography have made this technology available to health care providers at the patient's bedside. Point-of-care ultrasound assistance now aids providers with real-time diagnosis…
Breaking the Barriers
Part 6 of our compelling 6 part series.
Listless and sleepy, the three week old baby is making mother anxious. At the follow up clinic it’s low weight is also concerning physicians.
Three weeks old and weighing only 2.8 kgs the baby is too light. There are other concerns: the child is listless and feeding erratically. In remote Norteno, Panama ‘follow-up’ clinics are crucial in improving healthcare. Hand-carried ultrasound brings immediate diagnosis to this anxious mother’s child.
Sign up here to watch all six episodes and download Dr. Ben LaBrot's 10 tips for using portable ultrasound in…
Global Health Experience, Macedonia
At Sonosite we are very fortunate to know a large group of doctors and care workers who are invested in global public health. Those rare people that go to remote locations to treat patients and train the local healthcare workers rely on Sonosite to provide them with the ultrasound equipment necessary. Through charities, they are often able to provide ultrasound equipment to be left at the location and used by the newly trained staff. One of these individuals is Dr Randall Malchow who wrote this summary of his experience in Macedonia: Dr Randall Malchow’s Experience in…
Global Health Experience - Honduras
Here at Sonosite we have a pool of equipment that we loan for global health missions in under-served areas. We were fortunate to be able to support Dr Braehler's recent mission to Honduras. This is what he had to say:"We came back from our Operation Rainbow trip to Comayagua/ Honduras last Sunday and it was an amazing experience.We were able to do surgery for 43 patients in four days and almost all of them got at least one nerve block, quite a few got two for lower extremity surgeries. We did a total of 50+ blocks, all of them ultrasound guided and they all worked very well. The surgeons were…
Reaching the Remote: Maria's Baby
Part 5 of our compelling 6 part series. Maria is pregnant, a few days overdue with her baby in a dangerous, transverse position. Out here in this remote location, when to transport is the most difficult question. Dr. Jordan sees the complications ahead, live on screen with hand-carried ultrasound. Women in these communities almost always have their babies at home and infant mortality is high. The mother and grandmother's anxiety is compounded by the practical and financial difficulties in getting to a hospital far away. Complications lie ahead for pregnant mother Maria. Dr. Jordan, a…
The ever-changing Medicare Payment Policy
2015-01-27T08:00:00
Q&A with Jill Rathbun
Gus Iversen
The health care industry is increasingly facing payment pressures, especially from the shift to value-based medicine - high-quality care that is also cost effective.
In this Q&A article for DOTmed News, Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, in Arlington, VA, discusses the ever changing and complex topic of Medicare Payment Policy and what all health care executives need to be aware of in the coming months. An expert in health care policy and reimbursement, Ms. Rathbun explains and walks hospital executives…
Inside the Beltway: The 114th Congress and Healthcare Policy
Inside the Beltway: The 114th Congress and Healthcare Policy
Jill Rathbun
Jill Rathbun of Galileo Consulting breaks down the new Congress and what they are facing in the first few weeks of the year. We anticipate, as usual, healthcare issues and policy to be at the front of the Federal agenda. Sonosite will run the series for our customers to stay informed on what is discussed and coming as well as our work in this area.
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Diagnostic Shoulder Ultrasound: The Results Are In
Diagnostic Shoulder Ultrasound: The Results Are In
Don Buford, MD
In this article for Becker's Orthopedic Review, Dr. Don A. Buford explains both the clinical evidence and benefits for the use of diagnostic ultrasound for shoulder evaluation. In particular, evidence for the use of ultrasound as the first imaging study in cases of suspected rotator cuff tear. Dr. Buford, an orthopedic surgeon, also covers the benefits of ultrasound to patients, his clinical practice and the costs to the healthcare system. As the healthcare system moves toward both Appropriate Use Criteria for imaging and…
Reaching the Remote: Spreading the Vision
Part 4 of our compelling 6 part series. Panamanian panteras, or midwives, come together in a remote community to learn how to use hand-carried ultrasound scanners. Guided by a medical student from UCI, and using Sonosite Edge machines, they soon see how to recognise the placenta and position of the baby on screen, a live view that will alert them to potential delivery difficulties and other pregnancy complications. A group of eager Panamanian midwives, 'parteras', are shown how to use ultrasound machines in their own remote communities for the first time. UCI medical students help them…
Grateful Dad Donates a Sonosite Edge
Grateful Dad Donates a Sonosite Edge to the Ulss 21 Hospital Legnago, Department of Pediatrics, Italy
Cutting-edge tools for 43 thousand euro: an ultrasound for heart disease but also an high flow oxygenator and one for babies
A gift for a unique gift. This is what the dad must have thought when, in recent days, he gave the Department of Pediatrics of the hospital Legnago, Italy 43 000 euro, worth of new equipment, in gratitude for them having taken care of his daughter. Thankful to the pediatric department, the father of Verona, who wishes to remain anonymous, has donated…
Game Day Ultrasound
Courtesy of FUJIFILM Sonosite ANZ The Fremantle Dockers Football team have been using on-field Ultrasound as a way to visualize and diagnose soft tissue injuries with their players. The Sonosite Edge portable Ultrasound system provides beautiful images of the ribs and soft tissues for "match-day" diagnosis. This information allows the physician and coach to make an informed decision of whether the player should be sent back out in the field. The needle guided visualization allows the needle to be correctly placed and therefore, reduces complications.
Reaching the Remote: Mind's Eye View
Part 3 of our compelling 6 part series. In a makeshift clinic at a coastal community in Panama, Mackenzie, one of Floating Doctors young volunteers from Yale checks out a headmaster's kidney problem, her first examination using ultrasound. The ease and speed with which she familiarizes herself with the machine and gets the patient's kidney up on screen is remarkable. The clarity of the sonogram gives the physicians the information on which they decide treatment for patient Rigoberto's painful inflammation. School teacher Rigoberto is struggling with pain from a kidney problem. Dr. Ben…
Reaching the Remote: Gustavino's Story
Part 2 of our compelling 6 part series. The second video in this extraordinary series shows Gustavino, a frail boy with a fast deteriorating heart condition living high up in the mountains, 5 hour's hard trek from Pueblo Nuevo, Panama. Making the journey on foot, Floating Doctors founder, Dr. Ben La Brot defies the geography and other obstacles to link up Gustavino's medical needs and recovery with cardiologists hundreds of miles away. High up in the mountains above Pueblo Nuevo, Panama, the young boy Gustavino struggles with an unknown heart defect leaving him short of breath, weak and in…
Nomination for GSMA: Best Mobile Innovation for Health
"FUJIFILM Sonosite Inc. is honored to share the GSMA Best Mobile Innovation for Health nomination with Trice Imaging and congratulates both teams for working together and championing a successful trial with support from Qualcomm Wireless Reach and Sony. In the rural areas of Morocco, previously pregnant women had to wait up to two weeks to obtain the results of a critical obstetric ultrasound, now this trial shows that local sonography with remote interpretation can make a big difference in the lives of many who live in rural areas. Our goal in supporting such a well-managed trial…
Reaching the Remote: Getting the Edge on Diagnosis
Part 1 of our compelling 6 part series.
The Floating Doctors set up a mobile clinic in the village community of Bahia Grande on the Panamanian coastline. See Dr. Ben La Brot use the Edge system for the first time as he performs a gallbladder scan on an elderly woman with abdominal pain. Those few simple words: 'would you like to watch?' show just how profound a change hand-carried ultrasound is bringing to the relationship between clinician and patient. Dr. Ben La Brot of Floating Doctors puts a new Edge system through it's paces as he uses the technology to judge the severity of the…