Blog

Glimpse Episode 6: Dr. Tarina Kang

Dr. Tarina Kang is the Director of Emergency Medicine Ultrasound at LAC+USC and a Professor of Emergency Medicine. In this interview she discusses the types of post graduate training for practical ultrasound guided procedures as well as basic and advanced ultrasound applications. …

Ultrasound-Guided Procedures: Financial and Safety Benefits

ICU Management Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at Sonosite, and clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Southern California Dr. Mandavia discusses how ultrasound guidance adds value to both patient safety and removing costs from healthcare delivery. Read article …

Final 2016 Medicare Inpatient Rule Contains Provisions to Promote Patient Safety

2015-09-28T07:00:00 Final 2016 Medicare Inpatient Rule Contains Provisions to Promote Patient Safety Jill Rathbun Jill Rathbun of Galileo Consulting, in her continuing contribution to Dot.Med, explains key points for the FY 2016 CMS Inpatient Prospective Payment Final Rule. Ultrasound plays a role in the Hospital Acquired Condition Program and may contribute to lowering complications. Read article …

German charity Help in Motion has recently launched two off-road vehicles, carrying state-of-the-art medical equipment and basic medication. Help in Motion is staffed by volunteers from the well-established charity German Doctors. …

Growing up as an athlete gave Dr. Patterson some of the insights into how athletes push themselves through pain and often end up with worse injuries. …

Dr. Francis Yamazaki is a 30 year veteran in Anesthesiology. He is an Anesthesiologist with a cutting edge sports medicine group at Kerlan Jobe Surgery Center, LA. In this interview, he discusses the expectations of patients in the elite world of sports and the progression of anesthesia, particularly in the realm of nerve blocks. In particular how the progress of technology has improved safety for both patients and surgeons. …

Dr. Liz Turner, Director of Bedside Ultrasound for the Dept. of Medicine at UCLA, puts bedside ultrasound under the microscope. …

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Judith Anderson On the use of Sonosite ultrasound in Goma HEAL Africa acquired a Sonosite ultrasound system through the SoundCaring program to serve a hospital treating patients in a war zone. It is housed in the maternity ward but is often used in the Emergency Room. The very large ultrasound machine at the hospital has been most often out of service due to technical issues since it arrived. HEAL Africa now has a functioning ultrasound machine 24/7! It has been a huge help in diagnosing life-threatening situations. Dr. Christophe Kimona, General Surgeon and Chief of Staff, told me of two situations where knowing where the trouble was made emergency surgery possible and life-saving. A ruptured spleen won’t wait. With the many traffic accidents, grenade explosions and emergencies related to war around Goma this small, portable, hardy ultrasound is vied-for among the departments. But is stays in the maternity department, where it routinely helps doctors provide better deliver care for the women of Goma. We thank Sonosite for helping us to provide better care for the people of Goma. Judith Anderson is the Executive Director of HEAL Africa, a Monroe, Washington-based humanitarian organization. Learn more at www.healafrica.org. …

Haiti

Sachita Shah, MD, Emergency Medicine in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake Day 1 - Entering Haiti, January 27, 2010 When we flew in on Jan 16th to Port-au-Prince, the destruction was evident in many areas. The hardest hit included Carre Four with crumpled houses, which we could see from the plane. The airport was a military zone, and the UN compound had been crushed, with many armed UN and US military throughout the nearby area and various aid groups scrambling about. We were driven by Zanmi Lasante vehicles to several points, only to find the meeting places structurally questionable, finally ending up in an office where we divided into two teams: Saint Marc and Cange. We were on our way. The streets were full of people, occasional collapsed houses, and long lines of cars near the scant gas pumps that actually had petrol. We arrived exhausted at Saint Marc and found the house empty-abandoned as people had left in a hurry to get back to PAP to find their families. At the Hospital—Order from Chaos …

Rwanda

Steven C. Hall, MD, Anesthesiologist Discusses use to Sonosite ultrasound during a medical mission to Gitwe, Rwanda Medical Missions for Children is one of the largest nonprofit groups in the United States that provides surgical care for children and adults in some of the poorest and most underserved areas of the world. This is the fourth time a team went to Gitwe, Rwanda, to provide two weeks of free care. The team consisted of surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses from around the U.S. Several of us had been there before. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa and one of the poorest. Gitwe is a village in west central Rwanda that is isolated and without consistently reliable water and electricity resources. (This village is so small, you can’t even find it on Google Earth.) Our host for the trip was Reverend Gerard Urayeneza, a local minister and civic leader who has almost single-handedly built grammar and high schools, as well as a small hospital. There is very little medical care in this area, and surgery is not performed at the hospital when our team is not there. …

India and Morocco

Phil Arnold, MD On the use of Sonosite ultrasound for paediatric cardiac anaesthesia in developing nations Congenital heart disease is one of the most common forms of birth defect, affecting about one in 145 births in the UK or 4,600 babies every year1. About a third of these patients will require surgery, often early in life. Once performed, surgery can be effectively curative in many cases, the majority of these children will not require further surgery and be off all medications within a short period. Some children with more complex conditions will require medical treatment and follow up for much of their lives and may need further surgeries. In the UK around 5,000 heart operations are conducted for congenital heart disease each year and a further 4000 interventions are performed in children in catheter rooms (about 800,000 babies are born each year in the UK)2. …

Preventing Medical Catastrophes

Two exemplary Primary Care physicians are “uncovering serious abnormalities” that could not have been found through physical examination. In fact, these physicians found more than 50 cases of thyroid and other cancers. Read their article on the Imaging Economics website about how noninvasive screening at the point of care can help prevent medical catastrophes. …

Game-Changer

Imaging Economics | September 2011 "Use of ultrasound at the point of care is growing in sports medicine. In office practice and on the playing field, this versatile technology is now widely used by team physicians in professional sports to provide dynamic real-time evaluation and safe, accurate treatment of players' injuries. Most European soccer clubs, as well as the National Basketball Association, are taking advantage of ultrasound's well-established benefits for improving patient safety and outcomes, at a fraction of the cost of MRI or CT scans." Read the full article by Steven Sampson, DO, on the Imaging Economics site. …

Emergency Medicine in a War Zone

Sonosite is proud to acknowledge Dr. Todd Baker as a hero. He recently spent 15 months as chief of Emergency Medicine at the Army support hospital in Baghdad, Iraq. His small team worked 20-hour shifts, came under repeated rocket fire, and wore body armor while caring for patients. In the recent “Emergency Medicine in a War Zone” article published on www.acep.org, Dr. Baker recounts how a Sonosite ultrasound system was instrumental in helping save lives in a combat setting. Sonosite is honored to have played a part in his team’s heroic, life-saving service. …

This Fox Hunts with Ultrasound

New University | November 30, 2010 “This school year, UC Irvine has become one of the first medical schools in the nation to integrate portable ultrasound training into its curriculum.” Read full article …

Medicine’s New Wave

ZotZine | November 2010 “On her first day as a UC Irvine medical student, Sarah Rooney received an Apple iPad." Read full article …

New Ultrasound Technology Sharpens Needle Visibility

DotMed Business News | November 2010“Ultrasound is widely used to guide needles as they advance through tissue to their targets. Compared to traditional “blind” approaches based on anatomical landmarks, ultrasound guidance can greatly increase the success and safety of certain needle procedures.” …

Sonosite Profits from Diversity

Seattle Post-Intelligencer | June 1, 2008 “For Sonosite, the new models — called the S-series — were a move to expand the market for its ultrasounds by focusing in on its strategy of targeting specialists, who are not regular users of the devices. It could also boost the firm’s profits, which in the past have not kept up with the company’s sales growth.” Read full article …

Sonosite Ultrasounds Deployed after China Earthquake

The Life Sciences Blog | May 29, 2008 “Built to military specification, hundreds of Sonosite systems are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to aid in triaging wounded troops. Most recently, Sonosite systems were dispatched to help victims in the aftermath of the earthquake in China.” Read full article …

Vital Equipment Thanks to Scone Race Club

The Scone Advocate | May 21, 2008 “With the donation, the hospital will be able to purchase its own Sonosite M-Turbo ultrasound system.” Read full article …