Telemedical Portable Ultrasound.

The purpose of this project has been to develop a small hand-held self-contained battery powered diagnostic ultrasound US unit that would be highly transportable and relatively easy to use in the context of combat casualty care. The primary goal is to decrease the incidence of exsanguination on the battlefield secondary to intra-abdominal bleeding hemoperitoneum from blunt abdominal trauma BAT. The scope includes telemedicine capability allowing remote diagnosis and direction as needed by a medic in the field using a variety of transmission modes satellite to Internet. This has resulted in the development of a DARPA prototype unit, and a commercially available hand-held self- contained diagnostic ultrasound unit SonoSite 180 weighing about 5 lb. and having telemedicine capability. Evaluations by experts have rated the unit to have good diagnostic image quality similar to a mid-range clinical diagnostic unit. The ability to get a good quality sophisticated portable US unit to the soldierpatient in a remote setting regardless of location, and to be able to transmit the image to an expert for remote diagnosis as needed, is of major significance in triage evaluation.