SonoSite Delivers First Customer Shipment of Its Second Decade

  
    
  
  
    
      SonoSite, Inc. (NASDAQ:SONO), the world leader and specialist in 
      hand-carried ultrasound for the point-of-care, said today that it 
      delivered the first customer shipment of its second decade to Keith 
      Boniface, MD, Director of Emergency Ultrasound at the George Washington 
      University Medical Center in Washington, DC. SonoSite is celebrating its 
      10th year as a public company since its 
      spin-off in April 1998.
    
    
      Just back from teaching at an emergency medicine summit in Beijing, 
      China, Dr. Boniface returned to find his order for two new M-Turbo 
      systems had been delivered earlier in April. “SonoSite 
      thought about how emergency physicians practiced long before anyone else,” 
      remarked Dr. Boniface, who bought his first SonoSite system, the 180, in 
      2001. “The advent of hand-carried ultrasound 
      has benefited the care of emergency department patients in almost all 
      aspects – resuscitation of the critically ill, 
      rapid stabilization of the trauma patient, and increasing the accuracy 
      and safety of procedures including vascular access. We are finding more 
      and more uses for the technology. It changes the management of our 
      patients and saves lives everyday.”
    
    
      Dr. Boniface, who is also Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and 
      Associate Residency Director at the medical center, noted, “It 
      is a testament to the impact of the technology that emergency physicians 
      coming out of residency today feel uncomfortable practicing where 
      ultrasound is not readily available. The use of hand-carried ultrasound 
      is spreading across departments at this hospital. Anesthesia bought 
      their first system last year. Critical Care bought a system last month.”
    
    
      “With the leaps in imaging technology that 
      SonoSite has made,” Dr. Boniface said, “there 
      is no longer a trade-off between the convenience of portability and 
      image quality. The image quality of the M-Turbo is incredible. It’s 
      making great images attainable for anyone with a little bit of training.”
    
    
      George Washington University Hospital is the Level One Trauma Center 
      closest to the White House, serves 62,000 emergency patients a year and 
      is the home of one of the oldest emergency medicine residencies in the 
      nation.
    
    
      SonoSite shipped the first hand-carried ultrasound system, the SonoSite 
      180™, in 1999. Today the company has an 
      installed base of over 40,000 systems worldwide, has introduced four 
      generations of hand-carried technology, all weighing approximately 8 
      pounds or less, and is bringing the benefits of ultrasound visualization 
      to a broad range of medical specialists, including emergency physicians, 
      intensivists, anesthesiologists, medics, sports medicine physicians and 
      others. SonoSite’s rugged, easy-to-use 
      systems boot up in seconds and are enabling clinicians to deliver 
      better, faster, safer and less expensive care to their patients.
    
    
      About SonoSite
    
    
      SonoSite, Inc. (www.sonosite.com), 
      is the innovator and world leader in hand-carried ultrasound for the 
      point-of-care. Established as a public company on April 6, 1998, and 
      headquartered near Seattle, the company is represented today by ten 
      subsidiaries and a global distribution network in over 100 countries. 
      SonoSite’s small, lightweight systems are 
      expanding the use of ultrasound across the clinical spectrum by 
      cost-effectively bringing high-performance ultrasound to the point of 
      patient care. The company employs over 600 people worldwide and has a 
      global installed base of more than 40,000 systems.