“In low-resource settings or rural environments, you have to start thinking about things like durability, reliability, portability, that have to be designed in,” she said.
Improving access to life-saving technology
The small, handheld, point-of-care ultrasound system that Mbanjumucyo brought to his patient’s bedside is called Lumify, produced by health care technology company, Philips. Mbanjumucyo, as well as other staff members, were trained on how to use them by nonprofit organization Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Resource-limited Environments, dedicated to enhancing ultrasound education and its use in low- and middle-income countries. In the emergency ward, staff can wheel the device wherever it’s needed on a slimline, locally produced, wooden trolley designed to hold both the compact device and tablet.
“You can take it to the patient … it only needs space for you to scan, and then you can scan from anywhere you want,” Mbanjumucyo said.
PURE’s ultrasound mentorship program pairs resident doctors with emergency medicine physicians based all over the world. Mentors and mentees can engage in real-time remote consultation using Lumify with telemedicine platform Reacts.
Since the three Lumify devices were first introduced to the hospital one year ago, he said they have helped him to diagnose numerous patients in a much more timely manner, speed up the time it takes him to administer treatment.
According to a study supported by PURE on patients presenting with shortness of breath in CHUK's emergency ward, point-of-care ultrasound changed the top diagnosis 66% of the time thus improving diagnosis accuracy and quality of care.
Bich Le, CEO of the ultrasound business group at Philips, said that when patients can’t go to the equipment, the equipment must go to them.
Bich Le, CEO of Philips’ Ultrasound Business Group, explains why point-of-care ultrasound is important in low-resource environments.