PEORIA MAGAZINE April 2023

S P O T L I G H T

NO HOCUS IN THIS POCUS Exo Works is helping doctors use ultrasound technology to better diagnose and treat patients, and saving lives

BY MARK WELP

O ne of the next big innovations in high-tech health care is being tested by OSF St. Francis Medical Center ER doctors, and the results aren’t a lot of hocus-pocus. Indeed, it’s just POCUS, or point-of-care ultrasound, a portable medical imaging software system that doctors say could fundamentally change the way they do business.

more than producing images of unborn children; it can diagnose blood clots, kidney stones, abnormal growths and potentially deadly heart problems. “Three different times in my career, I’ve had people dying on arrival and I’ve used ultrasound to look at their heart and I see a massive amount of fluid that’s killing them,” said Dr. John Wipfler, attending emergency department doctor at OSF St. Francis. “Without waiting, I take a six-inch-long needle and push that into the space outside of the heart and suck out about 35 ccs of fluid. Their blood pressure instantly goes to normal and they stop dying on you.” OSF Ventures, the investment branch of OSF HealthCare, helped fund Silicon Valley-based company Exo several years ago and Exo Works was launched in March 2022. Wipfler and two fellow doctors volunteered to help develop the Exo Works software

and provide feedback regarding a tool that streamlines complicated processes and allows for split-second treatment decisions. Because the difference between life and death can be measured in minutes, Wipfler said trauma patients also will benefit. Let’s say a patient comes in with a chest injury and there’s a possibility of major internal bleeding. Ultrasound can be used “to look at their chest and figure out if they have lungs that are inflated or if you have maybe a deflated lung or a broken rib,” said Wipfler. “You can use ultrasound literally within 15 seconds of putting it on. You don’t have to wait five minutes for the chest X-ray. You don’t have to wait 15 to 20 minutes for the CAT scan.” The maker of Exo Works says the software “streamlines image documen tation, billing, quality assurance and credentialing all in one platform. The

The technology, from device company Exo, allows physicians to immediately and effectively diagnose ailments bedside and save the ultrasound images for future reference and treatment decisions. Ultrasound is used for much

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