Wireless ultrasound system enhance patient monitoring
Wireless ultrasound system enhance patient monitoring
Fri Jan 24 2014
SIEMENS has introduced the world’s first ultrasound system with wireless transducers, eliminating cables, which can be an obstruction and infection threat.
Ultrasounds are not just used for monitoring pregnancies: they are also utilised to monitor the instruments that are inserted into patients' bodies during an operation, including catheters which are guided through blood vessels to specific organs.
The Acuson Freestyle wireless transducers transmit ultrasound images via radio waves to the screen on the base console, increasing the operator’s freedom of movement.
They function reliably up to three metres from the console and are equipped with remote control buttons for adjusting the image settings. Siemens uses a proprietary 8GHz ultra-wideband radio technology for data transmission, avoiding interference issues.
Siemens engineers reduced the amount of data that must be transferred between the transducer and the console in order to make wireless data transmission possible. This was achieved via synthetic aperture technology, where each individual pixel iin the image is digitally focused once it has been transmitted to the console.
As opposed to the traditional acoustic transmit focusing method, which requires users to manually focus on a region of interest, the Acuson Freestyle system's synthetic focusing provides automatic uniform focusing throughout the entire field of view.