In African Villages, These Phones Become Ultrasound Scanners

What a wonderful invention - highly efficient and at an affordable price point.

Richard from Ann Arbor’s comment is relevant, not only for this (seemingly valid and innovative) product, but also for the current scattershot use and proliferation of our medical records, which never were as controlled access as we used to imagine. The downsides of capture and use by unauthorized, but interested parties, such as insurers, government, or even researchers are many, and so are the upsides. Especially as AI penetrates into medical imaging, highly specialized analysis by, for example, radiologists, will rapidly enable better diagnosis utilizing huge data sets far beyond the possible experience of individual human physicians. Thus, we arrive at one of the philosophical questions of medicine: is enabling medical care globally to the most people more defensible than controlling access and maintaining the current cost structure here in the US? Like it or not, the very obvious decay of healthcare here shown in global statistics relates to the profit-based structure we have, the for-profit insurance industry, and the resulting collection of law maintaining the system. Like it or not, our system is designed to deliver to an ever-smaller part of the population at costs far beyond those seen in other developed countries. So, in my opinion, the democratization of care via technology has to blossom, even with no regard for present law and custom. There are going to be issues and mistakes along the way, some of which can’t even be anticipated.

This is just amazing. Bravo to the team behind the design.

Butterfly’s basic business plan of uploading patient data to their own cloud platform, without any way to keep a copy in the local medical record and without any sort of business associates agreement with the hospital in which the device is being used is problematic in the United States. My impression is that they believe that they can create a consumer ultrasound device that requires no tech, no radiologist and no clinical judgement by collecting and analyzing ultrasound images collected using their platform. I think that goal is admirable, but In the meantime, they are creating a massive trove of personal health data that is being used for much more than the immediate diagnostic need without permission of the patient and without making it visible in the rest of the medical record.