Find equipment by setting: start with where it will be used
The same device, placed in an ultrasound department, a primary care consulting room, a resuscitation room or an operating theatre, faces completely different requirements. This section does not discuss how large a model is; it is organized around one question — which setting will it be used in. For each setting: what the hard constraints are, what to check, which probe or which class of device to match, and how to choose between three configuration levels. Once you have read one setting through, you can broadly tell how many units you need and in what form. Sixteen settings are covered at present: primary care screening, home and domiciliary care, emergency and bedside, anaesthesia and pain, obstetrics and gynaecology, urology, vascular access and dialysis, ophthalmology, veterinary, paediatrics, musculoskeletal, skin and subcutaneous tissue, cardiology, intervention, nursing and cannulation, and ECG and monitoring.
Primary care screening
Township health centres, community health service centres, village clinics. No dedicated sonographer, no fixed room or power supply, a mixed case load — these three constraints determine the form of the equipment, and also whether it ends up sitting idle.
The question to answer: with a dozen or so patients a day, how many units, which probes, and whether to add endocavity and cardiac options.
See the configuration for this setting →Home and domiciliary care
Patients' homes, nursing homes, postnatal care centres. No socket, no network, nowhere to put a screen, and the next patient is already waiting while you finish at the last one — in this category the choice is not about better images but about not depending on the surroundings.
The question to answer: whether one probe can cover both abdomen and superficial tissue, how to work out battery life for a half-day round, and how to schedule continuous probe use.
See the configuration for this setting →Emergency and bedside
Resuscitation rooms, observation areas, ambulances. The equipment has to reach the bedside and image as soon as it is switched on, and it answers one question at a time: is there fluid, is there free gas, is the vessel patent.
The question to answer: how convex, linear and phased array probes divide the work, and which three limits must not be crossed.
See the configuration for this setting →Anaesthesia and pain
Operating theatres, pain clinics. What is being imaged is vessels and nerves a few centimetres deep, sterility matters more than how the image looks, and the equipment has to be carryable in one hand.
The question to answer: which frequency range to choose, how deep the field needs to reach, and where to put the screen so that it does not get in the way of advancing the needle.
See the configuration for this setting →Obstetrics and gynaecology
Maternity and children's hospitals, obstetrics and gynaecology departments in general hospitals, fertility centres. Deep pelvic structures are not resolved well transabdominally, so early pregnancy and follicle work go endocavity; outpatient sessions often cover breast and thyroid as well.
The question to answer: how transabdominal and endocavity work divide up, and how obstetric measurements, postpartum residual urine and breast examinations fit into one configuration.
See the configuration for this setting →Urology
Urology departments and ward nursing. The question asked most often on the ward is how much urine is left in the bladder, and that is a measurement; the other half is the structure of kidney, bladder and prostate, and that is reading an image.
The question to answer: how volume measurement and structural examination are kept apart, and which probe is used for transrectal prostate work and which for dialysis access.
See the configuration for this setting →Vascular access and dialysis
Nephrology, vascular surgery, dialysis centres. Before the procedure the question is whether the vessel is large enough and how many millimetres below the skin it lies; afterwards it is whether there is still flow in this access — and the two questions call for different depths.
The question to answer: what the three depth ranges 10–40, 20–60 and 20–100 can each do, and how the four ways of supporting puncture differ.
See the configuration for this setting →Ophthalmology
Ophthalmology clinics and examination rooms. The eye is a small organ a few centimetres across, and a general-purpose probe applied to it is all near-field blind zone; and the A-scan and B-scan on this equipment are two different things to begin with.
The question to answer: how posterior segment imaging and biometry divide the work, and what precision IOL power and corneal thickness require.
See the configuration for this setting →Veterinary
Cattle, pig and sheep farms and small animal practices. Animals do not cooperate, the environment has to be washed down, and farms often have neither power nor network — these three decide usability more than specifications do.
The question to answer: which probe for large or small fetuses in cattle and horses, why backfat measurement and pregnancy checks are two different routes, and how to choose between a complete system and a single probe.
See the configuration for this setting →Paediatrics
Neonatal units and paediatric clinics. An adult abdominal probe on a small body lifts at both ends and gel cannot fill the gap; transcranial work needs to see several centimetres deep, while superficial lymph nodes lie within 20 mm — the two make opposite demands on frequency.
The question to answer: how microconvex and linear probes divide the work, how 5MN and 5ML differ, and whether a complete system is needed at the bedside.
See the configuration for this setting →Musculoskeletal
Rehabilitation, orthopaedics, pain clinics. Tendons, ligaments and nerves mostly lie 10–40 mm below the skin: at low frequency the layers are not resolved, at high frequency the beam does not penetrate. Musculoskeletal work is therefore a field where the shallower it is, the harder it gets.
The question to answer: how the range is divided into three by depth band, where an 80 mm wide footprint is used, and when the five measurement functions come into play.
See the configuration for this setting →Skin and subcutaneous tissue
Dermatology, burns and plastic surgery, superficial outpatient work. Selection at this end is both the simplest and the most unforgiving: the higher the frequency, the shallower the penetration, and 18–24 MHz tops out at 25 mm — one millimetre more and there is nothing to see.
The question to answer: why two series exist when the 8 and 9 groups of specifications are almost identical, and whether to lower the frequency or raise the gain when there is oedema or scarring.
See the configuration for this setting →Cardiology
Cardiology, emergency, ICU, anaesthesia. The heart is enclosed by ribs and the acoustic windows are a few intercostal spaces, so only a low-frequency phased array will do; and whether there is fluid and what the ejection fraction is are two separate questions to begin with.
The question to answer: where the line between probe and complete system falls, when continuous wave (CW) Doppler is essential, and how one dual-head probe stands in for two.
See the configuration for this setting →Intervention
Ultrasound-guided intervention, needle biopsy, catheter placement. There is really only one core question: can the needle be seen on the screen. Around that single question the product line offers four different approaches.
The question to answer: how to choose among guide lines, needle-tip enhancement, magnetic navigation and biopsy guides, and what each of them cannot do.
See the configuration for this setting →Nursing and cannulation
Wards, intravenous therapy teams, PICC clinics. This is the only setting on this site where the operator is not a physician: the learning curve has to be short, the on-screen prompts direct, and the equipment has to fit on a treatment trolley.
The question to answer: whether PICC and peripheral cannula work need two probes, how in-plane and out-of-plane approaches are chosen, and why removal assessment belongs here too.
See the configuration for this setting →ECG and monitoring
ECG machines, fetal monitors, multi-parameter monitors. This is the only page in the set that does not discuss images: these devices give waveforms, traces and numbers rather than pictures, so the selection question shifts from how clearly you can see to how long you can keep the record.
The question to answer: how the two platforms divide up, whether storage for 250 cases is enough for your outpatient volume, and how 720 hours of trends differs from 2 hours of waveforms.
See the configuration for this setting →How to use these pages
Every page has the same structure; just read it in this order:
- Start with the constraints. What actually blocks use in this setting — nobody trained to operate it, no socket, no network, nowhere to put it, animals that will not cooperate. The constraints determine the form, and the form determines the range of models.
- Then the tasks and probes. Match the examinations you need to perform against probe type, frequency and penetration depth. This is the table on each page most worth copying out and pinning up.
- Then the three configuration levels. The three levels are not a better-and-dearer ranking but a match to three volumes of work. Work backwards from your actual day, not from your budget.
- Finally the limits. What this equipment cannot do and which conclusions it cannot support. This passage is often worth reading twice more than the specifications.
If you cannot decide straight away, do one thing first: list the examinations performed in your department or institution over the past month, roughly how many cases of each, and who operates them. With those three numbers the configuration usually works itself out.
Sixteen settings, and the question each one answers
Some pages look alike: emergency and cardiology both discuss the heart, anaesthesia and intervention both discuss puncture. This table sets out how they divide the work so that you do not read the same thing twice.
| Setting | The question this page answers | What is not on this page |
|---|---|---|
| Primary care screening | How to configure when staff are few and the room is not fixed | Interpretation of specific diseases |
| Home and domiciliary care | How to configure so that it does not depend on the surroundings | Formal in-hospital examination workflow |
| Emergency and bedside | Is there fluid, is there free gas | Quantitative measurement and reporting |
| Anaesthesia and pain | How to guide vascular puncture and nerve block | Tissue sampling and biopsy |
| Obstetrics and gynaecology | How transabdominal and endocavity work divide up | Fetal structural screening |
| Urology | How residual urine measurement and structural examination are kept apart | Grading and staging |
| Vascular access and dialysis | What depth pre-procedure vessel selection and post-procedure follow-up each need | The catheter placement procedure itself (see the nursing page) |
| Ophthalmology | A-scan and B-scan are two different things | Interpretation of fundus pathology |
| Veterinary | Matching probes to species and approach | Human examinations |
| Paediatrics | How to solve a small contact area combined with a wide range of depths | Procedural standards for screening |
| Musculoskeletal | Narrowing the range to three probes by depth | Injection, release and similar procedures |
| Skin and subcutaneous tissue | How many millimetres below the skin the layer you need lies | Determining the nature of a lesion |
| Cardiology | The boundary between whether and how much | ECG and other equipment |
| Intervention | How the needle is made visible, and how to choose among four routes | Therapeutic procedures |
| Nursing and cannulation | Who operates, from puncture through to removal | Access follow-up (see the vascular access page) |
| ECG and monitoring | How long a recording is kept, and who can retrieve it | Interpretation of ultrasound images |
All sixteen pages follow the same approach: specifications are taken from the product specification tables on this site, configuration advice is organized by setting, and the limits are set out in a separate section. Specifications change with the products and the pages are revised continuously; the scope of application stated on the product registration certificate always prevails.
Asking with a setting in mind is faster than asking with specifications
Tell us three things: where it will be used, how many patients a day, and who operates. We can base a configuration recommendation on those three, or you can download the selection comparison table and work through it yourself first.
Tell us about your setting Download the selection tableThe specifications described in this section are taken from the product specification tables on this site; the scope of application is a reference explanation based on technical specifications, and the content stated on the product registration certificate prevails. For contraindications and precautions, see the product instructions for use. The product must be operated by a licensed physician holding the appropriate qualifications.
