Konica Minolta launched their SONIMAGE HS1 ultrasound system this week at the RSNA meeting in Chicago. The company claims that even though it's a compact system, its image quality compares to the higher-end systems.
It's specifically designed for musculoskeletal and pain management imaging, and is well suited for tissue visualization because it allows the physicians to see structures as small as several hundred microns.
There were several advancements made to the transducer technology, including a multilevel matching layer, optimized component materials and nanofabrication technology. It utilizes a five level wave control algorithm to create separate harmonic signals that encompass the whole receive spectrum of the system.
It has a couple of hot keys on the panel but the rest of it is touchscreen. "Physicians are busy, so we need to make it easy," Bill Kenny, senior product manager of ultrasound at Konica Minolta, told DOTmed News.
By pressing one button, the system connects with their ImagePilot workstation and cloud solution, Informity. Informity automatically generates an additional copy of the images, patient data and the workstation's system settings, and securely stores it off-site.
