Have Case Will Travel--Or Not? Portable Vs. In-Office Ultrasounds For Vets
Posted on: 20 December 2016
If you're a vet looking to make visits a little easier on your animal clientele, you might have a portable ultrasound machine in mind. Those do have advantages, but are they all that they're cracked up to be? Many animals don't like going to the vet's office, so if there's anything that can make getting checked out easier, that should be good -- but you should evaluate more than just that one test to be sure that spending money on a portable ultrasound is the right move.
Client Needs
Sometimes the need for a portable device is obvious. For example, if your office is branching out into agricultural areas and you'll be working on farm animals, you won't be able to bring cows into the office. You may also want to have a portable ready to go, waiting in your car trunk, if you work in a region where clients are separated by long distances. That way, you don't have to worry about trying to get back to your clinic if you get a call from someone near where you happen to be, but who is very far from the clinic.
Checking the Animal in the Comfort of Home
Sick animals don't benefit from the panic that can happen when they sense you're about to take them to the vet. If your clinic has any sort of house-call service, that portable ultrasound will be extremely helpful. You can take that and administer an ultrasound to try to diagnose something at the animal's home, rather than insisting the animal be brought in.
Remote Is Not Always Good
Of course, if the ultrasound finds something that needs further clinical work, the animal may have to come in anyway. It's one thing to diagnose a condition that needs a prescription, but quite another to diagnose a condition that needs surgery. Another problem with portable ultrasounds is that they're subject to all of the downsides of other portable devices, such as dwindling battery life when you most need to use the unit or a wonky internet connection for sending pictures back to the clinic for a colleague's opinion. These can be overcome, of course, but figure out first whether issues like battery life and data transfer capability will interfere too much with your work.
Portable ultrasounds can be very helpful, so don't let any seemingly negative points automatically dissuade you. Battery life, for example, just means you have to be more vigilant about charging the device. Visit sites like http://www.keebomed.com and talk to ultrasound sellers about the various models and find out specifics.
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