Portable Technology Brings Diagnostic Imaging to Patients

As president of QMX Mobile Health, Caleb Fort provides ultrasound and X-ray services to nursing homes and assisted living facilities. In recent years, Caleb Fort has witnessed significant changes in medical technology.

Portable X-ray and CT scan units are now available for patients who have difficulty traveling to doctors’ offices or live in developing nations where diagnostic resources are limited or nonexistent. Persons in remote areas can now receive earlier warning of potentially harmful conditions.

In addition to being easily transportable, the new devices have WiFi connections that enable doctors to transmit and examine CT and other images immediately and store them for later study. Such connectivity has been used in nations such as Nepal to work around long travel times to hospitals.

This new mobility applies to devices other than large machines. For instance, ultrasound imaging has become truly portable. The Mobisante company markets a scanning wand that plugs into a smartphone and uses a specially-designed app. This technology is now vital to reducing infant mortality in nations such as Somalia and Chad.