A portable ultrasound device recently used in Africa is making its way to the U.S., giving clinicians the ability to conduct, store and share images at the point of care.
The device is a collaboration between Fujifilm SonoSite and Trice Imaging, whose Tricefy sharing, collaboration and routing software has been integrated with Fujifilm's iViz portable ultrasound unit. It was used in a Qualcomm-funded project in Morocco – winning the 2015 GSMA Global Mobile Award – in which 575 mobile ultrasounds were conducted in the field and shared in real time with clinicians, reducing diagnosis time from two weeks to less than a day and significantly lowering per-patient costs.
The iViz has received CE approval in Europe and is pending FDA 510(k) clearance; its creators say it could be a game-changer in clinics and other remote healthcare locations that cater to at-risk and underserved populations.
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"Imaging devices are getting smaller, smarter and connected, making it possible to provide ultrasound outside the hospital environment," Asa Nordgren, Trice Imaging's co-founder and CEO, said in a release.
Fujifilm officials noted the iViz gives the remote clinician instant access to a patient's medical records, past exams and other tests. With a subscription to Trice, which includes encryption and authentication software, the clinician can share ultrasounds at the point of care with the patient, and pull in specialists and other care providers from other locations for consults.
This would be especially useful among populations who don't have regular access to healthcare services or who stay away from those services due to cost or other concerns – such as inner city residents, minorities, recent immigrants and rural communities. It would also allow solo or small practices to conduct ultrasounds at a reasonable cost and network with much larger health systems, rather than referring all of that business to larger and more expensive providers and forcing their patients to travel longer distances.
Fujifilm signaled its entry into the mobile ultrasound market with its acquisition of Seattle-based SonoSite in 2011, noting then that the market would be seeing double-digit growth for years as healthcare providers look to make medical imaging more mobile. Among the competitors in the market are GE, Siemens, AMD, IBM and Philips, which launched its Lumify app-based ultrasound solution earlier this year.
See also:
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