Portable Ultrasound – Technology, Convenience, Capability All In One

Small, packed with capability, completely portable and affordable. Sound too good to be true? It’s not. It’s the portable ultrasound and this small machine that relies on sound waves to produce images from inside the body is sending shock waves through the medical community by producing surprisingly good-quality images.

Perfect for undersized medical settings, such as an ambulance or helicopter, these small units boasts large capabilities. Even so, they are not yet advanced enough to replace the larger units that currently reside in most hospitals, but instead can act as a backup or perhaps a supplemental unit that can be tapped into during an emergency, in the field, or as a traveling unit that can be taken into rural settings where ultrasound technology may otherwise not be available.

And the scaled down price point of the portable ultrasound machine makes it even more attractive, costing approximately $20,000 to $26,000 per unit for the smaller, battery-powered, roughly six-pound unit. Add to this the fact that many of the procedures performed on the conventional larger-scale ultrasound units can be successfully performed on the portable unit and that the price difference is anywhere from a whopping $130,000 to $170,000, and the arguments for purchasing one of the portable units starts to make sense.

There are also other battery-powered portable ultrasounds that rely on array technology. These costs approximately $11,000 and meet the needs of cardiologists and obstetricians specifically.

In third world countries, a suitcase-sized ultrasound machine is being marketed. Unlike the other portable units, it can be powered by both battery and electricity supplied via an electrical outlet. This machine weighs around 20 pounds and costs approximately $45,000.

Well-known manufacturers of the scaled down machines include General Electric (GE), Toshiba, Medison and SonoSite, Inc.