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Comment by leggomylibro | Hacker News Reader

Certainly in a well-funded hospital, but might $2K also not look more appealing than $20K-$200K for a small clinic in a one-horse town?

Caveat, I have no idea how much a commercial ultrasound machine costs. But it's one machine Michael, what could it cost? Ten thousand dollars?

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$20K-$40K (about the price for ultrasound machines nowadays) just isn't that expensive for a piece of medical equipment. Your consumables are probably more expensive than that over a year.

I suspect this would be more useful for veterinarians--especially in one-horse towns. :)

Even for a well funded hospital this should mean that the procedure now becomes less expensive. Especially important for pets where you can be out of pocket for half the price of one of these.

Each of the machines at my (large academic) hospital is used for 8-12 transthoracic echocardiograms every weekday, or ~2,500 times per year. An average ultrasound machine cost $140,000 in 2016 (per [1]). If we assume that the machines last 3 years (so far I can tell you that they last at least 5 years, but let's be conservative), then the hospital gets ~7,500 ultrasounds for $140,000, so just under $20 of the cost is attributable to the machine. According to Choosing Wisely[2], the average cost of a TTE is ~$1,000. So, only 2% of the bill seems to be attributable to the price of the ultrasound machine. So, at least at major academic medical centers, the device itself probably won't make a huge change.

I could imagine the standard of care changing, however, and that might make a difference. If cheap ultrasounds become ubiquitous and more physicians are trained in their use, the use of ultrasound among generalists might increase, freeing up specialists to take a more narrow focus. I could see this technology being particularly useful in emergency and critical care settings.

1 = http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20141216/blog/312169...

2 = http://www.choosingwisely.org/patient-resources/echocardiogr...

The mark-up in western hospitals notwithstanding I can see a large market for cheaper devices in countries that are not so rich.

Absolutely. This price point -- apparently 70x cheaper than the prevailing standard -- could definitely bring the technology to places where $140,000 is prohibitive.

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