General practitioners and emergency physicians will be able to perform ultrasound scans using a portable probe, manufactured by the French start-up echOpen, connected to a smartphone.
- A multidisciplinary team from the start-up echOpen, incubated at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, has developed an “ultraportable” clinical ultrasound probe.
- This device, which connects to the practitioner’s smartphone via an application, allows you to visualize the inside of the patient’s body in order to better orient them, reduce diagnostic doubt and speed up treatment.
- This tool is intended for primary care providers, namely general practitioners and emergency physicians.
“Access to medical imaging remains a major challenge in the French healthcare system with only 4% of general practitioners equipped (compared to 60% in Germany)”, reported the Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) in a statement. This is why the start-up echOpen, incubated at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris, took up the challenge of designing a new medical device that could “reduce diagnostic wandering, streamline the orientation process and accelerate patient care”.
Ultrasound: an “ultraportable” probe for smartphones intended for general practitioners and emergency physicians
The device in question is a clinical ultrasound probe “ultraportable, echOpen O1, supplemented with digital services”, which is intended for primary care providers, i.e. general practitioners and emergency physicians. In detail, it is a personal, wireless, light, robust, high-performance and one-stop probe. “price that will allow every doctor” to have one. The latter “fits in your pocket, can be carried anywhere, like a stethoscope” And “connects wirelessly via an app” downloadable on most Android or iOS smartphones, said Olivier de Fresnoye, co-founder and general manager of the start-up.
This tool is connected to the healthcare professional’s phone. “The smartphone allows you to display the image, store it temporarily or send it to a cloud service and share it with colleagues in a secure manner. (…) The objective is not to replace the extremely technical ultrasound machine of radiologist, which allows a fine diagnosis to be made”, explained the leader to several daily newspapers. He specified that after having “auscultated, palpated, questioned” his patient, a practitioner could, for example, “add an echo to see through the skin, look at various organs such as the liver, kidney, heart and guide your diagnosis”.
The medical device will be deployed from the first quarter of 2024
This “ultraportable” ultrasound probe will be deployed from the first quarter of 2024 in various “AP-HP pilot services” For “appreciate all impacts” of the tool, “before mass production by April.” The AP-HP hopes that the device will be widely distributed “in France and abroad, and particularly in Africa”.
