There has been an evolution of diagnostic devices following a trend in general design to make articles for personal use having them become more miniaturized, digitized, and connected. Past goals of medical tools was to simply measure health parameters, vitals signs, and record measurements. Now the question seems to be how to more accurately measure in a more patient friendly manner, even in low resource, remote, emergency areas or regions.
When these instruments first came out in 1940s they took up almost the space of an entire room, sizes of devices slowly started to decrease in the 1960s with movability improving. In the early 2000s the first portable ultrasound machine emerged and performance has continued to improve with each year. IStore has a telesonograpraphy app available currently, and NASA developed a virtual guidance program for non-sonographers to use for ultrasounds in space.
More and more diagnostic devices are being turned into smaller and palm sized gadgets such as the Viatom Checkme Pro which is the closet tool to the medical tricorder, or the Clinicloud, and the Eko Core with both can replace a traditional stethoscope. Now enters Philips Lumify hoping to deliver on promises of turning tablets or smartphones into portable ultrasound devices.
Philips Lumify is streamlined and comes with various accessories including 3 different transducers and cables, a Samsung tablet and power cord, and a table case and carry bag. Philips also offers the Reacts tele-ultrasound platform which is a third party service, and a 5 year warranty. The package is customizable if all three transducers are not needed.
The device has been reviewed by specialists taking the following factors into consideration: size, portability, user-friendliness, and imaging ability. In many ways it was found to be easier to use, there are significantly fewer ingredients to mix in and procedures to carry out to utilize power of the portable device: simple plug any of the transducers into an Android device using a USB connection or use the Samsung tablet, download the Lumify app and that’s it the device is ready to go, simple easy peasy.
There are some differences between the three transducers. Broadband sector array carries out high resolution imaging for abdominal, cardiac areas, lungs, and is applicable for gynecological exams. Curved array transducer provides high resolution imaging for more in-depth applications such as the gall bladder, abdominal, and lung imaging. Linear array transducer can examine soft tissues, vascular, superficial, and musculoskeletal areas among others. All three transducers come with a wide frequency range. To carry out an abdominal ultrasound one would plug in a transducer to the device, and the application will detect it within seconds and let the user select the type of exam to perform.
The Lumify app interface is straightforward and intuitive making it so that assistants and patients can use it and then submit results to a professional for review. Besides zoom, and scrolling up or down on a real life imaging app there are a number of useful items to choose from such as freeze, capture, save, and possibility to annotate files or measure distances and circumferences. The Lumify app is able to calculate estimated age and fetal weight while doing pregnancy scans; using M-mode it provides opportunity to learn about movement of an area of anatomy and calculate fetal heart rate. The app allows for creating individual profiles and keeping local records of patient files that can be shared with professionals. Philips stores the data in a cloud safely in an HIPAA compliant manner. An option is available to import medical records with help of patient barcodes.
Philips teamed up with REACTS which is a secure, integrated, and collaborative platform to share ultrasound imagings and for consultations; the third party program is HIPAA compliant and very secure making data theft and hacking become out of the question. There is a pointer function in the app when activated to explain a specific area of the image better during consultation that could be handy in complex cases or ambiguous masses and lesions.
This portable ultrasound could literally be used in a living room, but it does have a considerable downside: it’s pricing. Three pricing schemes are offered: 1) users can borrow the transducer at a monthly rate if not paid will automatically deactivate that is only available within the USA; 2) the entire sum as a one time fee of about $8,000.00 depending on location of shipping from distributor and type of institution receiving the device and 3) a 5 year long payment plan with a fixed sum every month in Philips Lumify’s response to commodity credit. Even still this technology may remain too expensive for groups who may be interested in using the device in remote communities, low resource regions without infrastructure, emergency services, medical teaching facilities, or NGOs dealing with refugees.
In short the Philips Lumify does embody almost everything digital health stands for; making patients the point of care providing diagnostics more efficiently delivering help where ever it is needed, BUT pricing compels many to say it may not be disruptive. Perhaps in the future the same things may happen in this area as it did with the fall in pricing of genetic testing.
The device is already present in many regions and countries such as Uganda, India, Rwanda, and Kenya, developers would like the model and platform to be globally available within the next 2-3 years while constantly developing the software.
