Philips targets rural mothers with cheap ultrasound device

Maternal health has become a focal point for Kenya as it aims to lower mortality among pregnant women.

Philips Healthcare has been pushing products to cater for the segment, targeting the market with portable devices, mainly used by community healthcare workers who offer door-to-door services.

Showcasing the latest device in the segment, Philips Healthcare has manufactured a portable handheld ultrasound device, which is a cheaper miniature version of Visiq that was introduced to Kenya two years ago.

According to Ulrich Klaus, Philips global business development manager, the device is a smaller affordable version of the Visiq and will be available for retail in 2017.

Lumify is Philips’ smart device solution, which is set to make ultrasound technology more accessible to licensed healthcare providers or organisations.

The portable ultrasound gadget is a tiny handheld, app-based device that is composed of a transducer attached to a smartphone or tablet computer that is not only used in maternal scans but also training and in emergency settings.

The World Health Organisation recommends that pregnant women make at least four antenatal care visits before they deliver.

These check-up sessions provide opportunities for clinicians to examine the mother and baby for any health complications or concerns that may adversely affect delivery or cause death.

Ultrasounds, which are part of the checkups, are recommended several times during the pregnancy at a cost as high as Sh3,000, making them out of reach for most.

“The price of Lumify is still an ‘internal negotiation’, the device may be acquired for a monthly leasing of $200 (about Sh20,000). If the health worker conducts just two scans for a day for as little as $5 each, they will recover the money in about two week,” says Ulrich.

The previous Visiq version, introduced in Kenya in 2013, weighed 1.2 kilogrammes and was designed to come with a detachable tablet, unlike the Lumify which can be attached to any screen as it is app based.

The app has, among other features, a chance for transmission the images over social media and automatic storage of patient data.

The application updates itself once a month whenever it is connected to the Internet, and was designed to carry out self-diagnostic tests that will warn the user that there is a need to fix the transducer, or the phone. It was designed for low resource settings that cannot afford or sustain the normal common Cart Base Ultrasound Machine which not only need specialised healthcare human resource to operate but also a steady supply of power which us never guaranteed, especially in rural settings.

Visiq cost $15,000 (about Sh 1.5million) which was still unaffordable for most health facilities and clinics in Kenya.