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Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | December 14, 2016
From the December 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The company made enhancements to the Edge II to accelerate the time it takes to acquire an image. It also features a technology called DirectClear that improves image quality, has a wide-angle display with 33 percent more viewing angles and a protective casing to make it more durable. GE Healthcare showcased its new Vivid iq portable cardiovascular ultrasound at the American College of Emergency Physicians annual meeting. The system was commercially launched globally in August at the European Society of Cardiology Congress.
“Years ago, the compact systems had low-level performance and low-level capabilities, but with our design team and our technology, we are able to keep that performance at a very high level with things like 4-D transesophageal imaging,” says Al Lojewski, general manager of GE’s cardiovascular ultrasound business. The system’s keyboard is a closed design, meaning that fluid can’t get into the electronics or the corners. That makes it much easier to clean than traditional compact ultrasounds, which is more important than ever, now that hospitals receive penalties for hospital-acquired infections.
It’s also designed with tactile feedback so that the users can feel that a button has been pressed. That’s helpful because they can continue looking at the patient or the screen as they are typing on the keyboard. “They can feel when a freeze has been done or they have changed modes,” says Lojewski. “They don’t have to keep moving their eyes back and forth from the keyboard.”
Faster, more efficient care
“The ACA has really changed how we look at patient care. Outcomes are everything and they are being financially incentivized for infection reduction and patient flow,” says James Laskaris, clinical analyst at MD Buyline. “That’s being translated to all of these new technologies [and it’s] starting to affect the emergency room and ICU.” In June, Philips launched its Minicare I-20 handheld blood test, which quickly diagnoses a heart attack at the scene of the event. It’s able to make a diagnosis in less than 10 minutes, and the test results are comparable to those from lab testing.
The test measures the level of the protein cardiac troponin (cTnI), which the heart muscle excretes into the blood after a heart attack. It includes a handheld analyzer, software and a disposable cartridge with an application-specific test. It was evaluated at a hospital in Europe and was found to accurately measure cTnI values in the ED in less than 10 minutes. The current standard involves a one-hour wait and takes up to three hours to rule out a possible heart attack.
