August 24, 2009
Montreal-based Vimedix Set to Unveil Unique Transthoracic Echocardiography Simulator
The Montreal-based company VIMEDIX Virtual Medical Imaging Training Systems Inc. is about to introduce a unique transthoracic echocardiography simulator system. The innovative, revolutionary technology is designed to help train healthcare professionals perform anatomical and physiological assessments of the heart using ultrasound.
The cutting-edge simulation system, which draws on extensive local expertise in the fields of cardiology and virtual reality computer technology, will be unveiled at a world premiere launch in Chicago on August 27-28. The simulator launch will take place during a clinical seminar provided by ICCU imaging, a company dedicated to training physicians in the use of bedside ultrasound.
For the first time, during the hands-on portion of the course, participants will be able to perform the scanning of acute cardiac pathologies on the Vimedix echocardiography simulator. The technology simulates transthoracic ultrasonographic assessment of the heart, providing real-time, dynamic imaging. The simulator will enable students, residents and other health care professionals to become more familiar with examination of the heart using ultrasound.
The system includes M-mode imaging and Doppler assessment of cardiac structures, features never before simulated in virtual reality. Using a custom-designed mannequin and transducer, the VIMEDIX simulator provides a highly realistic echo experience, from hand-eye coordination and probe handling to pathology recognition in 3D.
“Currently, there is no such simulation system for transthoracic echocardiography on the market,” stated Dr. Robert Amyot, the president and co-founder of VIMEDIX who teaches clinical cardiology and echocardiography at Montreal’s Sacré-Cœur Hospital. “Our system will be a major medical breakthrough in promoting the accessibility of echocardiography as a most effective technological diagnostic modality.”
Dr. Yanick Beaulieu, vice-president of market development for VIMEDIX, a cardiologist-echocardiographer and intensive care specialist at Sacré-Cœur Hospital, said there are many major advantages to this exciting new technology.
“The simulator system we have developed will raise the efficiency and quality of doctors’ training and will become a central part of an integrated, standardized curriculum.” he remarked. “And, by providing enhanced training to intensive- and critical-care specialists, the simulator will help them make better use of the bedside ultrasound in the clinical setting, thereby having a significant impact on point-of-care assessment and treatment of acutely and non-acutely ill patients. This will most likely translate into better patient outcomes.”
Simulators are increasingly being used to train health care professionals and to assess their competency in various medical disciplines. The proliferation of simulators in institutions, skills labs and simulation centres will lead to standardized teaching and competency assessment. It will also allow the improved training to be taught in a more streamlined fashion, since virtual reality exposes students to dozens of rare pathological cases in a short time-span. Traditional training, by contrast, depends on the random turnaround of patients, to enable trainees to be exposed to diverse diagnostic entities.
“Our markets are everything from the skills labs – there used to be 140 in the world and they now project there will be 1800 by 2012 – community colleges, university hospital centres, certification agencies and medical imaging companies, to the larger scale markets that include the general hospitals,” said Dr. Amyot.
About VIMEDIX
Since its founding by a biomedical engineer, a mathematician and two cardiologists in 2007, VIMEDIX has gained considerable prominence as an R&D company in the field of advanced medical simulation training. Based in Montreal, where it is able to draw on the expertise of a unique combination of software creators, biomedical engineers and physicians involved in teaching and clinical research, VIMEDIX is the only company to have commercially developed a virtual reality, animated transthoracic echocardiography simulator.
