Poor Image Quality Help from Trisonics!
In today's blog we are going to highlight another biomedical/clinical engineer tip from Trisonics! This blog is geared towards asking the right questions when trying to troubleshoot errors with your broken ultrasound equipment.
Tue Nov 12 2013
In today's blog we are going to highlight another biomedical/clinical engineer tip from Trisonics! This blog is geared towards asking the right questions when trying to troubleshoot errors with your broken ultrasound equipment. See below for tips from David Nye at Trisonics!
According to Nye at Trisonics, “in the diagnostic ultrasound world the description poor image quality is as good as ‘It doesn’t work’.” David goes on to further his statement by saying that “just like any other piece of broken equipment the key to finding out the problem is asking the right questions.” Despite not being a biomedical engineer, I can’t agree more with him overall. The first step I use when troubleshooting any sort of error is to evaluate the situation and ask questions in order to specify and breakdown where the actual problems lies.
Nye’s first step would be to “ask if it is bad with all the transducers or a specific one?” Obviously if they say only the one certain transducer, the problem has been narrowed down pretty quickly. Next David says he “would find out what the inquirer means by “poor image quality.” Is it poor penetration or no power, too grainy or too smooth, shadowing, artifact, or noise? The answer you get here may ultimately lead you to the problem. Poor penetration or no power may mean that “there is a delaminated lens with air trapped between the patient and the transducer crystals.” Too grainy or too smooth may be a preset issue with the system. Shadowing could mean there are crystals out on the transducer. Artifact or noise could be a damaged cable or connection to the crystals. Nye states that “even if you are not sure the exact problem with the transducer, one sure fire troubleshooting step would be to put it on a different system and see if the problem follows the part.” If it does you saved the day and can send out the bad transducer for repair or exchange.
On the other hand, if they say it is poor with all the transducer things are a little more difficult. Nye says to “try and narrow down the problem to a specific part of the system.” For example is the whole monitor blurry or just the image area? Does it happen in all the modes 2D, Color, Pulse wave, Continuous wave, M Mode? Does it happen in certain presets? How does the image look when it is viewed on a PACS workstation? David states that “all of these questions will help narrow it down to the specific circuitry that may be causing the problem.” Another possible option is on board diagnostics? David says that “most manufactures protect this option with some sort of password or option key.” If you are able to run these tests there is a chance that the problem will cause a failure. If you exhausted all your options and still do not have a fix politely try and confirm what they are comparing these images too. If the department has four brand new systems and one that is ten years old with poor image quality they may be spoiled with the new systems and forgot what the old one looks like. Nye goes on to state that “based on your relationship with the end user this can be a tricky diagnosis and may require backup from a reputable ultrasound repair company to confirm your findings.”
As always, visit Trisonics for all of your Ultrasound system needs!