Objective
Medical Ultrasound today is considered as a mainstream technology in the medical sector. It is largely associated with prenatal care to access the health of a baby in its mother’s womb but that is only a small percentage of its overall usage. Apart from Obstetrics, Medical Ultrasound is used in Cardiology, Neurology, Ophthalmology and many more clinical fields.
Traditionally, ultrasound scanners where totally combined units including the ultrasound hardware, software and user
interface in one unit. Quipu is changing this model by separating the software from the hardware.
Quipu introduces the concept of an app-store for ultrasound scanners. Through our system hospitals can make use of lower
to mid-range scanners to get the diagnostic functionality of high end scanners. During the last 3 years we have developed a
Suite of ultrasound diagnostic applications focused in the Cardiology segment of ultrasound diagnostics. Currently the
software is installed on a laptop or computer and the ultrasound scanner is connected directly to the computer or laptop.
The user simply launches our suite of applications, selects the diagnostic application required, starts the scan and the
software will automatically provide the metrics of the analysis and store the scans and results for later use. We have
successfully sold our software to clients in Europe, USA and Africa.
During this last year we have been working on improving integration and interoperability across a wide range of ultrasound
scanners through a cloud based infrastructure. We have developed a TRL 6 prototype of Quipu Cloud based on a set of
cloud services and special hardware that works with a wide range of ultrasound scanners. Quipu Cloud improves integration
and makes it easier to share resources and data with peers. Through this PH1 we would like to study further the feasibility
behind this concept and develop a business plan around this kind of service we will be offering to our clients.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
56124 PISA
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.