How point of care ultrasound devices speed diagnostics and support health equity

He sees point of care ultrasound (POCUS) devices as the future of this school of imaging. With a POCUS device in hand, care teams can now transition to "history, physical, POCUS exam," moving imaging to the left of the care continuum, to provide the right information, make better decisions and provide rapid care. Traditional cart-based ultrasound and first-generation point-of-care ultrasound have been around for some time, but newer semiconductor chip-based, stapler-sized, less costly probes make clinical assessment imaging not only possible, but highly practical. Also, such simple, affordable imaging can meaningfully advance health equity across geographies, specifically in rural areas where access to radiologists is limited and can result in significant inconvenience to patients, let alone delays in care. A. Cross-setting and cross-specialty use of ultrasound information not only improves and speeds diagnostic decision making at the point of care, but also addresses growing burdens on the radiology field. And, in the two-thirds of the world where medical imaging is absent altogether, use of handheld ultrasound can introduce a care modality that otherwise does not exist. It's one reason the Gates Foundation recently provided a $5 million grant to Butterfly to bring 1,000 handheld ultrasound devices to Sub-Saharan Africa to improve community access to medical imaging.