SonoSite’s equipment picked for top trauma center

Published 10:54 pm Sunday, October 12, 2008

Bothell’s Sonosite, which specializes in portable ultrasound equipment, recently sold 12 tools to be installed on resuscitation towers at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles.

The hospital, the nation’s largest and busiest trauma center, will use Sonosite’s equipment in a new way, installing it on towers so that everyone working on a patient will be able to see the information at the same time.

“Sometimes 30 clinicians might be working on a trauma patient at once,” said Dr. Edward Newton, chairman of emergency medicine for the hospital. “With the (equipment) mounted on the resuscitation tower, the screen can be seen by everyone, rather than one person viewing the image and relaying the information to others.”

The ultrasound equipment, which will help the medical team look inside the bodies of trauma patients, will be installed alongside defibrillators, cardiac monitors and other critical equipment.

“This is a ground-breaking installation,” Newton said.

He said the equipment will save both time and money for the hospital.

Dr. William Mallon, president of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, agreed.

“Relying on a stethoscope and palpation is positively Stone Age,” he said. Without the ability to see inside the body, we risk making decisions with incomplete information.”

The company said the new equipment is the first to offer what it calls a “zero footprint” option for crowded settings such as a trauma center. Buttons, dials and menus have been stripped to the bare essentials so they work quickly and are sealed so they are easy to sterilize.