August 22, 2008 - SonoSite Inc. said today it began customer shipments of its first major expansion of capabilities for the S Series ultrasound tools, with upgrades including four transducers covering a wide range of clinical applications to the S Series product line and enabling playback of the SonoSite Education Key program training modules.
The company said the training models are available for purchase to existing customers and can be downloaded from a USB thumb drive. Leveraging the integration of Texas Instruments’ multimedia DaVinci technology with its fourth generation product platform, SonoSite’s Education Key program is available on a USB thumb drive that can be played directly on the S Series products. The Education Key program features clinical training videos with market specific versions for anesthesiology, emergency medicine and critical care. Training modules are also available to help new users quickly learn how to use the system. SonoSite’s Education Key program can also be played on PC and MAC computers.
The new transducers added to S Series include:
- L-25x/ 13-6 transducer for the S-FAST product – The company said its optimized for vascular and venous scanning, examination of superficial structures and guidance of vascular access procedures. The new transducer joins the P21x/5-1 phased array and ICTx/8-5 curved array transducers on the S-FAST product, as well as the C60x/5-2 curved array, L38x/10-5 linear array, and HFL38x/13-6 linear array transducers, for abdominal, cardiac, vascular, venous access, small parts and OB/Gyn emergency applications.
- P-10x/ 8-4 transducer for the S-ICU™ and S-Cath products - Available for pediatric cardiac and abdominal scanning and for scanning the delicate structures of neonatal heads. It joins the available suite of curved, linear and phased array transducers that cover a range of critical care imaging and interventional applications such as line placement, biopsy, dialysis access, stent placement and vascular access.
- The C-60x/5-2 transducer for the S-MSK product - Designed to facilitate guidance of hip injections. Just released in March, the S-MSK tool is the first ultrasound product customized for musculoskeletal specialists. It provides exceptional imaging of superficial and deep targets for a quick look assessment and guidance of interventional procedures such as injections and aspirations of the knee, shoulder, elbow and other joints in the body.
- The SLAx/ 13-6 high frequency linear transducer for the S-Nerve product – The company said it is designed for guidance of pediatric peripheral nerve blocks and line placements. The S-Nerve is available with a combination of curved and linear array transducers for virtually every anatomical and clinical anesthesia applications. The S-Nerve tool allows the anesthesiologist to perform the most difficult upper and lower extremity blocks as well as confidently place intravascular lines in the desired vessels.
The S Series was recently recognized with its second design award, an International Design Excellence Award (IDEA), from an annual, juried competition co-sponsored by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and BusinessWeek, that highlights the most innovative product and product concept designs of the year. Out of 1,517 entries, only 12 awards were given in the medical and scientific category. The SonoSite S Series product line also won an iF Product Design award in March 2008 from the European International Forum.
For more information: www.sonosite.com