Sonosite Edge II at the 2017 Gaes Titan Desert Race

Sonosite Edge II at the Gaes Titan Desert in 2017
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. …

Ultrasound and Changes in Value-Based Care

Uncertainty – especially in economics, government, or healthcare - can be hard to handle. Combine a little bit of uncertainty in Washington D.C. and the medical community and you’ll have a window into 2017, a time when the future of the Affordable Health Care Act and the health sector is in flux. …

Global Health: Ultrasound Expands Access and Improves Maternal Care

Sonosite mobile ultrasound project
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. …

POC Ultrasound Testing Speeds Diagnosis, Safety at the Bedside

Physicians today face a multitude of ever evolving challenges, and one thing we’ve seen is an increase in the demand for educational sessions covering the latest in ultrasound. Dr. …

3 Steps to Get Buy-in for your POCUS Expansion Programme

How To Get Buy-In For Your Bedside Ultrasound Program
Anyone who has ever tried to change the way medicine is practised knows that inertia makes it difficult to get buy-in from colleagues and administrators. Introducing a relatively familiar technology, like point-of-care ultrasound, into a broader hospital setting might not seem like a difficult task, but all procedural changes face some kind of resistance. In Germany, physicians at the Evangelisches Krankenhaus have been able to expand the application of POCUS through multiple wards using three methods.   …

Beyond the Block: Anaesthesia Ultrasound for Perioperative Care

Anesthesia Ultrasound for Perioperative Care
The role of the anaesthesiologist is evolving to include perioperative care.  With hospitals seeking innovative ways to streamline patient care and improve outcomes, anaesthesiologists are increasingly expected to provide patient care beyond general anaesthesia and nerve blocks. But beyond the block, how does perioperative ultrasound help anaesthesiologists do their jobs? The answer has a lot to do with the changing practise of medicine. …

Point-of-Care Ultrasound Shows Promise for Osgood-Schlatter Diagnosis

Osgood-Schlatter disease is a developmental disorder that causes musculoskeletal problems and is rare in the normal population. However, the condition is more common in teenagers who play sports, affecting an estimated 3-5% percent of this population; it causes painful inflammation below the knee in adolescents and can lead to permanent soft tissue damage. The condition is often diagnosed by MRI, which is both costly and impractical for screening purposes. …

Watch the Value of Endobronchial Ultrasound Webinar

Are you a pulmonologist, interventional pulmonologist, or thoracic surgeon? Check out our webinar “Lung Cancer: The State of the Disease,” from the Endoscopy Division of FUJIFILM. More people die every year from lung cancer than from colon, breast, and prostate cancer combined. In August 2016, we aired “Lung Cancer: The State of the Disease.” It’s a timely and informative webinar led by David Feller-Kopman, MD, Director of Bronchoscopy & Interventional Pulmonology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and a world-renowned expert in his field. …

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. …

Ultrasound-Guided Vascular Access Programme Saves St. Joseph's $3.5 Million

Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality Matthew Ostroff, ARNP The American College of Emergency Physicians issued a policy statement in 2016 advocating a new safety standard for vascular access through the use of ultrasound guidance. St. Joseph's Healthcare System, in Paterson, N.J., launched a programme that has yielded significant safety and quality of care improvements for all patients requiring vascular access. This article describes how St. Joseph's cut healthcare costs and improved patient outcomes by achieving the "one-stick standard". …

Six Secrets of Implementing Ultrasound in Paediatric Emergency Medicine

Becker's Hospital Review Russ Horowitz, MD, RDMS Ultrasound is an important tool for rapid assessment of trauma patients, CVC and regional nerve block placement, facilitating difficult PIV access, and assessing cardiac function during resuscitations. In this article, Russ Horowitz, MD, RDMS, discusses six strategies to help implement ultrasound at the bedside in paediatric emergency medicine. …

Proposed CMS Hospital Outpatient Department Rule Detrimental for Imaging Services in CY 2017

Healthcare Business News Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA In this article for DOTmed News, Jill Rathbun discusses the proposed CMS hospital outpatient department rule and how it will impact imaging services in CY 2017. Read more to understand how payments may be restructured to reduce the total number of classifications. …

Performance-Based Payment & Orthopedics: A Focus For The Medicare Program

Becker's Hospital CFO Jill Rathbun, Managing Partner at Galileo Consulting Group, Arlington, VA In this informative article for Becker's CFO, Jill Rathbun covers the newly implemented CMS Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement payment model. While the program began April 1, 2016, many of the hospitals were not, and are still not, prepared to participate. Read more to understand the basics of the model and how to be successful. …

8 Ways to Avoid Central Line Placement Complications

Placing a central venous catheter using ultrasound guidance
Central line complications: they’re risky, costly, and all-around burden to healthcare. Whether it’s CLABSIs or iatrogenic pneumothoraces, CVC complications are not just terrifying for patients and unnerving for doctors; they are also costly for medical facilities. Fortunately, there are tested methods that can drastically reduce complication rates (and associated costs) for critically ill patients who require venous catheterization.  …

Ultrasound Technology Designed for MSK, Developing a Positive Image

Orthopedic Design & Technology Bill Medford, MSK Ultrasonographer In an article by FUJIFILM Sonosite's own Bill Medford, RDMS, RMSKS, Lead Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Specialist, he explains how as a clinical expert with over 17 years of experience, he sees the advances in ultrasound and in particular the X-Porte's significant contribution to the practice of musculoskeletal (MSK) medicine. With new breakthroughs in technology and the increasing interest in improving diagnostic capability at the point-of-care, the X-Porte's design and image qual …

Six Steps to Implement Bedside Ultrasonography in Critical Care

Health Management Magazine Nidhi Nikhanj, M.D. In this article for ​Health Management Magazine, Dr. Nidhi Nikhanj lays out the path for a system-wide implementation of point of care ultrasound to bring quality of care and enhanced patient safety to the bedside. See the six steps that a large health system used to successfully adopt ultrasound. Read Article …

New Increased Tax Deductions on Ultrasound!

Newly increased:  Deduct up to $500k on ultrasound through December 31! Increase quality of patient care by adding ultrasound to your practice by utilizing tax incentives and 0% financing available through December 2015. Newly increased tax deductions!  Take advantage of the Section 179 tax incentives through December 31:  Deduct $500k on all capital equipment investments up to $2M. Also, get 0% financing for 36 months on Sonosite ultrasound systems. …

Taking Ultrasound to Mongolia by Ingrid Yuile

mongolia-sonosite-blog
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.  …

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: …

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.     …