From the December 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


However, if the hospital is paid based on whether the patients receive the right care at the appropriate price, then the centers will be lucrative for the ED. Urgent care centers are an important link between the emergency and primary care physician, but experts warn that it’s not appropriate for every situation. “When care is needed for true emergency situations, like heart attacks, strokes, major bleeding and severe burns, it’s vital to go to an emergency room immediately, as urgent care centers are not equipped or designed to treat life- or limb-threatening conditions,” says Sellars.

New portable ultrasounds on the market
At the American College of Emergency Physicians annual meeting in October, Royal Philips announced that it received FDA clearance for its S4-1 cardiac transducer. It’s used with the company’s app-based diagnostic ultrasound solution, Lumify, which was introduced at the Radiological Society of North America 2015 annual meeting. With the S4-1 transducer and its FAST exam pre-sets, emergency physicians can perform exams at the point of care and more efficiently triage patients. Lumify now has a full suite of point-of-care transducers that enable the users to perform cardiac, abdominal and OB/GYN exams.
The Lumify app and its three transducers have completed rigorous environmental and durability testing for emergency, critical care and ambulatory settings. The S4-1 transducer weighs 152 grams and is smaller than a smartphone. Lumify has cloud-enabled technology that connects it with a hospital’s PACS, shared networks and system directories. It has all of the right technology in place for ambulatory use, but there are still hurdles that need to be overcome.

“There is a technology aspect of getting a solution into the ambulatory market and there are also policy and people challenges,” says Randy Hamlin, vice president and point-of-care business leader for Philips Ultrasound. “[We need to get] ambulatory folks educated and trained on the use of ultrasound, and have policies set up [within] the [ED] environment to connect the ambulatory folks.”

Philips is speaking with emergency medical system (EMS) groups around the country and finding that many of them have very different policies. The company will be working with the individual groups to put the solution in place, but each group has to look at its policies and procedures before it can be widely deployed in ambulances.

FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A. Inc. received FDA approval and CE mark in January 2016 for its SonoSite Edge II portable ultrasound system. Because it can be carried by hand or used on a small stand, it’s also ideal for EMS care. “With an increased sensitivity to imaging radiation, as well as an effort to control health care costs and improve patient safety, leading health systems within the U.S. and abroad are increasingly adopting point-of-care ultrasound,” says Dr. Diku Mandavia, chief medical officer and senior vice president of FUJIFILM.

December 2016 Magazine

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