Eric Topol on where it is and where it could go.
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To date, smartphone ultrasound has not caught on much in the United States for a several reasons. There’s no reimbursement code for physicians to acquire the images or an easy mechanism to place them in the electronic medical record. In primary care and many specialties, there is a lack of experience in acquiring images, dependent on referring patients to the ultrasound lab for formal studies by sonographers. Image quality in the early days (circa 2010) of handheld ultrasound was poor, but it has markedly improved now and in most patients (in skilled hands) comparable to expensive ultrasound machines. The ultrasound probe devices that attach to smartphones are much too expensive, ranging form $2000 to $8000 with many requiring monthly subscription services to use the app. But the amount of money saved by not referring patients to an ultrasound lab would easily pay for these devices in a system with universal health care. In the United States there is no incentive.
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