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| GE Healthcare's Vscan hand-held ultrasound device--Courtesy of GE Healthcare. |
Medical students who were trained to diagnose valvular heart disease using hand-held echocardiography technology performed better than students trained to diagnose the disease using only traditional methods, such as listening for heart murmurs with a stethoscope. Among students trained using only traditional methods, 40% correctly diagnosed valvular heart disease on the final exam, while 58% of those trained in the use of the ultrasound device were able to do so. Both sets of students were shown a video of echocardiograms. The device used in the study was GE Healthcare's ($GE) Vscan. The results were released at the American Heart Association meeting in Chicago. Release