Sonosite handheld ultrasound for global health missions

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 utilises 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…
Sonosite ultrasound machines in Puerto Rico

Global Health: Fujifilm Sonosite Machines Assist Puerto Rican Recovery

Dr. Alfredo Tirado is from Florida Hospital in Orlando, and has been leading an emergency response mission in Puerto Rico to help with Hurricane Maria relief. FUJIFILM Sonosite has contributed four M-Turbos to the medical recovery efforts, and Dr. Tirado sent us an update on his work with medical patients on the island. He is being escorted by helicopter to the most at-need regions and in the image below he is using the Sonosite iViz to perform a FAST scan on a patient.  Sonosite-blog-post-puerto-rico.png "Thank you for helping us give…

Point-of-care ultrasound helps make regional anaesthesia quicker and safer, and improves patient comfort

Ultrasound guidance has proven invaluable for the regional neurosurgical centre at the Salford Royal Hospital, helping to improve safety, save time and enhance the patient experience. Dr. Jim Corcoran, consultant neuroanaesthetist and clinical director for perioperative care at the hospital, explained.   When I joined the Salford Royal in [2006], my initial interest in ultrasound grew out of a need to alleviate the delays experienced by trauma patients needing a cardiac echo. Training opportunities for regional anaesthesia in the North West were very limited, but we realised that…
Sonosite Edge II at the Gaes Titan Desert in 2017

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 anaesthetist 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…
FUJIFILM Sonosite Donates Portable Ultrasound Systems to Refugee Rescue Organization

Global Health: FUJIFILM Sonosite Donates Ultrasound Systems to Refugee Rescue Organisation

 FUJIFILM Sonosite has donated two M-Turbo point-of-care ultrasound systems to the non-governmental sea rescue organisation Proactiva Open Arms, based in Badalona, Spain, to support efforts in rescuing refugees.Proaativa Open Arms specialises 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 mobile ultrasound project

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…

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…

Point-of-care ultrasound systems prove ideal for the Children’s Acute Transport

London, UK, February 16, 2017 - The Children’s Acute Transport Service (CATS) depends on point-of-care ultrasound systems to get quick and accurate vascular access in critically ill children being transferred to specialist treatment centres. Advanced Nurse Practitioner Cathy Roberts explained: “In the UK, paediatric intensive care is provided at centralised units, and children needing this care must be safely transferred there by people with appropriateknowledge and skills. CATS provides a retrieval service for the North Thames area, transferring around 1,200 critically…
Sonosite Supports Homeless Veterans with Sonosite iViz Ultrasound

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 recognised 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…
LIG Global Uses Sonosite Ultrasound in the Dominican Republic

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 utilised 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…
Gold Coast University Hospital

Mobility and the Sonosite iViz: Gold Coast University Hospital

Read how one of Australia’s largest emergency departments, the Gold Coast University Hospital is utilising the Sonosite iViz.Dr. Stuart Watkins works in one of the largest and busiest emergency departments in Australia averageing 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…
mongolia-sonosite-blog

Taking Ultrasound to Mongolia by Ingrid Yuile

Ultrasound educator Ingrid Yuile took her training skills and Sonosite EDGE to the steppes of Mongolia and found a country of beauty and complexity.  This is her story… “In June 2015, I set off with 8 intrepid emergency physicians to teach emergency medicine to Mongolian doctors across a range disciplines. A strong relationship between Australian and Mongolian anaesthetists has been forged since 2001 when Dr David Pesod first represented Australia at an anaesthesia conference.  Over the years, Australian volunteers have delivered quality training in obstetrics and…

iViz in Kolkata India

  Dr. Gordon Johnson travels to India and Haiti regularly and finds point-of-care ultrasound to be essential for seeing his patients in resource limited settings. Dr. Johnson had his share of scanning and training with iViz during his most recent trip to India on December 2015, and reports back to us: “During my trip to India I joined the professors and residents on rounds on the medical wards in two public hospitals in Kolkata India. The staff was really excited to see this technology, many had ultrasound experience but none had seen such a capable device. We performed cardiac, lung…
Sonosite goes to CES 2016 Digital Health Summit

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 centre 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…

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…

Natividad wins Trauma II designation

Surgical services staff applauds at a ceremony on Monday marking Natividad Medical Center's designation as a Level II Trauma Center for Monterey County. To help them in their work, trauma center staff has 51 pieces of new equipment. Walls singles out Sonosite portable ultrasound as one of his favorite pieces of equipment.: Sonosite portable ultrasound machine."It can instantly look inside your abdoman and chest to see if there's bleeding. It allows us to do a 'fast exam.' In a few seconds, I can look in both sides of your abdomen, around your heart ... and tell the trauma surgeon whether you…

More from the front of the Ebola fight in Africa

Penn doctor going back for second tour fighting Ebola in Africa Henwood in the protective gear that prevented her use of a stethoscope, with the ultrasound machine she used to check patients instead. After spending five weeks working in an Ebola treatment unit, Dr Trish Henwood is going back for a second tour fighting Ebola in Africa. She feels the work is vitally important, that great progress is being made, that the virus can be stopped, and that America must continue its support in fighting the deadly virus and epidemic. She spent five weeks in Bong County, a remote area in Northern…

First Ever European Ultrafest: Maribor, Slovenia

Last Year UCI, held the first ever Sonosite supported Ultrafest.  Then it expanded to Stanford and TJU with resounding success.   Last weekend, it went to Europe with the first Ultrafest in Maribor, Slovenia.  Below is an excerpt from an email we received about the event: Students working with live models and the Sonosite NanoMaxx Dear all; It is with great pleasure that I am writing to briefly summarize the first ever European Ultrafest in Maribor, Slovenia. Upon opening online registration, the response was absolutely amazing - more than 200 medical students applied in…

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…

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…