Handheld ultrasound to make its Olympics debut

Handheld ultrasound is ready for its close-up, in front of a global audience. Physicians at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be able to take images right on the spot with GE Healthcare hand-carried ultrasound units. Imaging units will be available at multiple Olympic venues for quick digital scans that can be sent electronically to major hospitals should an athlete need to be transferred.

Radiologists expect to perform about 900 diagnostic imaging tests on athletes and support staff during the Olympics, which open a week from Friday. That would be 40 percent more scans than at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy, which itself saw a 40 percent increase in diagnostic imaging over the 2002 Olympiad in Salt Lake City. "We have more tools at our disposal to make diagnoses with more advanced MRI units or portable ultrasound," Vancouver 2010 imaging manager Dr. Bruce Forster said, Canadian Healthcare Technology reports. Dr. Forster will head a team of 19 radiologists and 51 technologists for imaging efforts at the Games.

GE Healthcare also is providing the Vancouver Olympics with a mobile medical unit in a tractor-trailer that can expand into a 12-bed field hospital in case of a disaster.

To learn more:
- take a look at this Canadian Healthcare Technology story

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