"There are all these procedures that are evolving...where you can use ultrasound to do a better job, to see what you're doing or to aid in a quick diagnostic," says Jeff Peiffer, global marketing and product development for point-of-care markets at GE Healthcare. "This is what's occurring outside the traditional market."

The Venue 40's touch-screen technology eliminates all the buttons, knobs and the keyboard. It has a continuous flat surface facilitating cleaning to maintain sterile hospital environments. The unit's size and simple interface likely prove less intimidating to those new to ultrasound use.


"The thing that's unique about these users is that they're not sonographers, they're primarily physicians. The Venue 40 has a lot of inherently intuitive characteristics, it's meant to be really easy to use," says Peiffer. "If you walked up to a Venue 40, your first impression would be, 'this doesn't look like an ultrasound machine.' It has a very friendly design."




The cost of a Venue 40 can range between $25,000 and $35,000, depending on the configuration, additional features and transducers.

GE Healthcare also recently introduced the Vscan, a new pocket-sized visualization tool that uses ultrasound technology for imaging, measurement and analysis in the abdominal, cardiac, urological, fetal/OB applications and fluid detection. The product is meant to enhance the quality, ease and speed of a physical exam.

"Some of the product features that we're really excited about are the portability, the size and the weight of the unit," says Al Lojewski, global general manager of cardiovascular ultrasound at GE Healthcare. "The whole unit weighs less than a pound." Its images are stored on a micro SD card and can be viewed using the product's software. The Vscan is marketed toward nontraditional users but it is also not a typical ultrasound unit.

"[What] we've done with Vscan that's different is that we did not think of this as a miniature ultrasound device," says Lojewski. "It's a device specifically designed to enhance the physical exam and the immediacy of the answers that physicians want to give to their patients," he says.

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