Some initiatives have tried to alleviate this problem by providing training to midwives and doctors to provide primary care with portable ultrasound units, and robotic ultrasounds are also an emerging solution.
While access to ultrasound for prenatal and diagnostic imaging is good in urban and large regional centres of the country, there are still issues with providing adequate services in rural and remote communities. In Australia, ultrasound was pioneered by David Robinson and George Kossoff, who built the CAL Echoscope in 1961 as a safer alternative to x-raying pregnant women to determine the health of their unborn babies. Think about defibrillators, which used to only be in hospitals but are now in every mall and office – someone off the street can now deliver an electric shock to someone’s heart,” he said. “When the first thermometers were made, when the first blood pressure cuffs were made, they were only in hospitals.
While the device is not yet approved for domestic use, Martin cited past examples of medical equipment that had moved out of hospitals into the public arena. The device will be released this year by Rothberg’s startup, Butterfly Network.Īccording to Butterfly Network’s Chief Medical Advisor John Martin, this will lead to benefits such as parents being able to check children for broken bones after falls, rather than facing a long wait in a hospital emergency room. Rothberg told IEEE Spectrum that he hopes the Butterfly iQ ultrasound system will start a revolution in medical imaging access that will eventually see ultrasound units as common in household medical kits as the thermometer is today. US engineer and entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg is determined to “democratise” ultrasound technology with an economical, artificial intelligence (AI) enhanced probe that plugs directly into a smartphone. One engineer is borrowing techniques from the microelectronics industry to put ultrasound machines in every household.
0 kommentar(er)
