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A comment on Butterfly iQ – A cheap handheld ultrasound tool with AI smarts inside. Parent comment

Re:Butterfly iQ – A cheap handheld ultrasound tool with AI s... by joshvm on Monday October 30, 2017 @08:31PM (#15590236)
The issue of specialist departments seems to be a global problem. A friend of mine needed to get an image taken for a diagnosis. He was referred to another hospital because our local one didn't have the capability. In the end they used an SLR to take a photo and sent it to where it needed to go. Why couldn't they do that in the first hospital? Why can't the GP do that and send the image? I have no idea.

We're constantly led to believe that the revolution is coming where you can snap a photo of your arm, send it to the health service and get a diganosis. That's not happening for a long time, I think.

> “And saving those images is required to bill for the scan,” he notes.

If that throwaway comment doesn't worry people, then I don't know what does. I can understand low resolution, health risks, but a principle barrier to the hospital is that they can't charge you for using it? Fuck that system, quite frankly.

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Re:Butterfly iQ – A cheap handheld ultrasound tool with AI s... by pcl on Monday October 30, 2017 @10:20PM (#15590683)
Yeah, that's a really dispiriting sentiment to read.

But the good news is that it's rooted in the hopefully-soon-to-be-obsolete pricing model. If ultrasound devices really can get down into the $2000 price range, then the good doctors will buy them as a cost of doing business, and just not bill for the ultrasound readings. Wait a decade or so, and that'll percolate from the good doctors to the rest of the field.

Yes, there are perverse incentives etc. etc., but I know a number of doctors who are in it for the love of medicine and helping people. The bureaucracy changes course slowly, but those leaders can and do make a difference over time.

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Re:Butterfly iQ – A cheap handheld ultrasound tool with AI s... by pjwMD on Wednesday November 01, 2017 @11:43AM (#15602311)
One voice does not equal the system, but in any the push by some to bill for clinician performed US is largely driven by a need to generate funds to justify to administrators the purchase of a $70k device.
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