Dr. Oron Frenkel is well versed in the art and science of using ultrasound to “do the best job that I know I should be doing for all my patients,” he says. An emergency physician trained in San Francisco with a fellowship in point-of-care ultrasound, he currently practices in an urban emergency department and in rural hospitals in the Pacific Northwest.
Dr. Frenkel was one of the first to “test drive” the new Clarius PAL HD3 dual-array wireless ultrasound scanner, which combines phased and linear arrays on a single scanner head.
It’s as if I had a miniaturized cart,” he explains. “It finally takes all the skills I have learned over the years on cart-based ultrasounds, miniaturizes them into a tiny package, and allows me to deliver that level of care to all of my patients in the department, and it sticks with me. So, I never have to go chase the cart.”
Watch our video interview with Dr. Frenkel to learn more about why he “wholeheartedly recommends” Clarius PAL to his colleagues. Or read on for his insights on why he uses Clarius ultrasound wherever he practices medicine.
How does Clarius handheld ultrasound compare?
I would say the PAL multipurpose scanner, and the Clarius scanners in general, operate on an image quality basis that’s comparable to most cart-based systems that you would find in the emergency departments that I’ve worked in. What really sets them apart from the carts is their portability, which really improves your workflow because you don’t need to chase down the cart or deal with finding this other object that’s clunky and in the way and bringing it into the room. It’s much more seamless, and when you have to navigate tight spaces or go from room to room, it’s so much easier to take a portable device with you.
And then the other thing that really sets it apart is that it’s integrated on my phone with a really easy user interface. So, it’s really familiar with swipes, touches, taps instead of the buttons and knobs. That can be pretty intimidating to a lot of people that are on these set-aside carts, and it’s a more native, easy-to-use application interface that also makes it seamless to just power on the ultrasound and go.”
Does handheld ultrasound enable better clinical outcomes?
I think there is no doubt anymore that whenever we put a needle into someone’s body, we’re moving towards a standard of care where it should be image-guided, and the PAL scanner enables the most facile way, really, that I can see for particularly emergency physicians or anyone who’s really doing ultrasound-guided procedures to integrate image guidance into their everyday practice more easily.
Especially for us as emergency physicians or other healthcare practitioners who are doing both diagnostic and procedural ultrasound, having a single scanner that can do both really drops the barriers to achieving that higher level of care.”
Is using wireless ultrasound system advantageous?
If you had asked me eight years ago, I might not have appreciated the value of the wireless application because all I knew were carts and I had grown up training on carts that had a cable, and you just learned to manage this cable that was always in the way, and it was like wireless earbuds, that once I transitioned to wireless, now when I go to use a cart, that cable is so annoying, and it’s really in my way all the time and I really value wireless. It’s going to be really hard for me to ever go back, if I ever had to, and I hope I never do.”
How does POCUS Influence the Patient Experience?
Patients in general love to get ultrasounded. They feel like you’re really going the extra distance for them, that you’re doing tests to really figure out what’s going on or what is or what isn’t going on with them. Rule in, rule out. It’s been shown in research and in all of our personal experience where patient satisfaction just really elevates when you bring in the point-of-care ultrasound into your practice, and the PAL scanner just enables you to do that in a really easy fashion.
Some of the barriers to using point-of-care ultrasound in a busy department is having to go get the cart, really chasing it around the department, maybe someone else is using it, and then you skip the ultrasound scan. Maybe it wouldn’t make a huge difference in that patient’s care that you think, but to the patient it means all the difference that you really went that extra mile and did the ultrasound.
Patients are so grateful that you really looked at their organs and they can even see it on the screen where you can show them. Particularly with pregnant women, they all love to see their fetus, and it really makes it really easy to flip it around and show them while you’re scanning even, and you see their face light up. Everyone’s so happy that you could do it.
And the same thing for musculoskeletal issues. People like to see if they have pathology, or if something’s normal, really understand better what’s going on. Patients can really go a long distance in understanding their scan with a little bit of guidance, and just seeing the image, really, can be reassuring to them.”
Register for a Free Emergency POCUS Webinar with Dr. Frenkel
Is your patient suffering from congestive heart failure, COPD, or a pulmonary embolus? Join us for a 1-hour webinar to learn how Dr. Frenkel uses POCUS to assess patients presenting with acute dyspnea. He’ll demonstrate a step-by-step approach for performing a focused set of cardiac and lung ultrasounds to assess your dyspneic patients.
Reserve Your Spot for EMERGENCY POCUS: Techniques to Differentiate Causes of Dyspnea
Elevate Your Hospital Practice with Clarius PAL Ultrasound
In busy healthcare settings, the Clarius PAL delivers an instant window to support diagnostic confidence and safe procedural guidance. With the phased and linear arrays on one side, you can seamlessly switch between presets with a single click. Clinicians say they can perform 95 to 99% of bedside exams with a single scanner, eliminating the need to swap probes, reducing interruptions, and improving workflow continuity.
Learn more about Clarius PAL for emergency medicine and critical care. If you have questions about Clarius for your practice, book a virtual private demonstration with a Clarius expert today.
