BOTHELL, WA, February 26, 2002 - Sonosite, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO), world leaders in the hand-carried, point-of-care ultrasound market, today announced a renewable agreement to provide the Sonosite 180PLUS and the SonoHeart ELITE hand-carried ultrasound systems to both hospital facilities and deployable operations within the federal government healthcare system. This agreement makes Sonosite a provider of hand-carried ultrasound for federal agencies and the military in the United States and became effective February 12, 2002.

"Over the past two years, the Company has made significant progress by shipping over 90 Sonosite systems to federal agencies and the military, both domestically and abroad," said Ronald S. Dickson, vice president of U.S. sales. "Our agreement will streamline the acquisition process for U.S. federal agencies and the military, allowing them to purchase our hand-carried ultrasound systems more expeditiously and with greater ease through the Defense Supply Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

The Sonosite 180PLUS and the SonoHeart ELITE products are Sonosite's current versions of hand-carried ultrasound for use in a variety of clinical settings and applications. Proprietary miniaturized ASIC designs give these systems powerful features traditionally found on cart-based ultrasound systems, including pulsed wave (PW) Doppler, Tissue Harmonics (THI), M-mode and ECG capability. The SonoHeart ELITE system, additionally, offers continuous wave (CW) Doppler, providing a quantitative assessment of blood flow moving at speeds higher than PW Doppler is capable of assessing. These advanced features open the door to potential customers who require high image quality, quantitative measurement and versatility.


About Sonosite
Sonosite, Inc. (www.sonosite.com) is the innovator and world leader in hand-carried ultrasound, with an installed base of more than 20,000 systems. The Company, headquartered near Seattle, Washington is represented by eight subsidiaries and a global distribution netwok in over 75 countries. Sonosite's small, lightweight systems are expanding the use of ultrasound across the clinical spectrum by cost-effectively bringing high performance ultrasound to the point of patient care. The Company employs approximately 450 people worldwide.