GE’s Vscan ultrasound device sub-$10,000

By: Brian Dolan | Nov 17, 2009        

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Medgadget got the inside word from GE on its newly unveiled Vscan device, which is a wireless ultrasound device that is about the size of a mobile phone. GE also recently announced that clinical trials are currently underway in hospitals in Spain and Italy. Medgadget acquired a list of some of the specifications about the device:

Vscan will cost less than $10,000; it will have about one hour of operational battery life, and will require about one hour to charge the battery; the battery will be interchangable and will include a separate charger; the device will also have software to interface with still images and videos with electronic medical records.

At TEDMED last month, The West Wireless Health Institute’s CMO Dr. Eric Topol predicted that tools like GE’s Vscan are pushing the stethoscope to extinction. Topol predicted that by 2016 physicians won’t need the stethoscope anymore.

Medgadget has much more on the device, here. Or continue on to watch a demon of the Vscan device:

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  • http://ultrasound.engineering.wustl.edu/index.php/Cell_Phone_SDK bsnguy

    Or just use your cell phone…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCvj_ioTqCo

  • marcwojo

    I teach ultrasound for a living it takes years to learn. This us a useless toy.

  • new MD

    I respectfully disagree. For people with training as an md, it definitely does not take years to learn to use this incredible tool…as a medical student, I was given access to color echo doppler simply as a learning tool in an outpatient cardiology practice and with my medical training in anatomy and physiology learned quickly to assess and measure, just as the techs on staff, heart chamber size, valvular abnormalities, normal/abnormal flow patterns, ejection fraction, etc. in a matter of just a few hour sessions….I also volunteered in a clinic with a breast cancer surgeon who, after a few hours of observing him using ultrasound in his office for assessing breast lesions and in performing ultrasound-guided biopsies, permitted me to do the lesion assessments and biopsies under his supervision and observation, without assistance, and I was able to be as accurate as he was….this tool is extremely important and exciting for the promise and change it will bring to md’s in bedside care, particularly those in primary care….streamlining the process of ruling out malignant lesions, for example, and thereby avoiding the expensive “specialist” referral pathway, at least for some disorders…obviously more advanced imaging “reading” can only be done by specialists highly trained in their respective fields.