SpiroCard® PC Spirometer Testimonials
The Mobile C.A.R.E. Foundation provides free and ongoing asthma care and health education for children in Chicago’s underserved communities via mobile medical units, the Asthma Vans, conveniently located at their inner-city school. Mobile C.A.R.E. brings the doctor to the patient. More than 17,000 patient-visits have taken place at the organization’s two mobile clinics. The Mobile C.A.R.E foundation chose the SpiroCard Spirometer for their program because of its portability and accuracy.
Read what some of the Mobile C.A.R.E doctors have to say about the SpiroCard:
“I have been using the SpiroCard for 6 years, 15-20 times a day. We use the SpiroCard to aid in diagnosis of our patients with symptoms of asthma... as a tool to visually show our patients their progress…What I like best about the SpiroCard is its portability, ease of use, and reliability…It enables us to have a tool that we can show to our patients and their parents as to why they need to start and consequently stay on their controllers. Our patients respond very well to the SpiroCard. They enjoy the graphics and the ease of the test… Most other Spirometers I have used in the past have been bulky, hard to perform the test, unreliable results and difficult to calibrate...We have recommended the SpiroCard to many physicians and 2 have actually bought your product due to our referral.”
Dr. Karen Malamut
“I have been using the SpiroCard since 2001… 40+ times per week to diagnose patients with asthma and monitor treatment of asthma…What I like best about the SpiroCard is its ease of use and detailed reports. It has enabled us to effectively diagnose and treat asthma. It is also an excellent teaching tool for families.”
Stephanie A. Whyte M.D., F.A.A.P
"..... I thought you all would like to know that I have been promoting your device everywhere I go. I have shown the Pocket PC Spirometer at the ACOI convention in Arizona this past October and the MO/KAN AACVPR convention where I spoke in late October. At the convention several of the therapists (pulmonary rehab people) wanted to see the device. I am using it in a lot of health fairs now too. I am in the process of making my first foray into consulting, and I always find myself telling people about the iPAQ SpiroCard ......
The lung health clinic I started out of this physicians' office is going to be featured in the "Success Stories" portion of the March AARC Times, and guess what I'm holding in my hand for the picture? That's right. It's my iPAQ SpiroCard set-up. Look for it in March. Also, our cardiologist and some of the internists here are interested in trying out the EKG capabilities too, now that they see how useful the Spirometer is."
Tom Mayer, BA, CRT, CPFT
Director, AMI Lung Health Clinic
Kirksville, MO
"Thanks for your help with my SpiroCard and Universal ECG. They are definitely the diagnostic tools of the future for exercise physiologists......or more correctly, with these diagnostic tools the future is here!
I had three separate meetings with graduate students yesterday.....in
each case my bottom-line description of clinical skills included spirometry and EKG interfaced with handheld computers......Each of these students had an immediate, intuitive understanding of the "new world" of physiology and clinical exercise interventions available through QRS technology."
John Loeber
Adjunct Professor
Long Island University
"I have used the Spirocard from QRS in my office. I tend to use it with my COPD and asthma patients to monitor their disease process. I also use it as a diagnostic tool to see if people meet criteria for pulmonary disease and begin to categorize them.
One of my favorite things to do is to put interested smokers through a round of spirometry and show them the decrease in lung function that they've got despite being relatively symptom-free. This way I can show them real consequences and explain that it will progress to permanent lung damage if they continue. The response to this from my peers and my patients has been generally positive.
A great way that this has improved patient access to health care is that my patients can get a full set of spirometry in my office with technology that I can fit in a lab coat pocket. They don't have to go to a hospital to get this done, and I can teach them about their lung function immediately after they've done the test and seen the results. I have been using the QRS SpiroCard for over a year now. I have used it on over 100 patients". This technology is amazing. I saw some of their upcoming products at a medical convention and doctors with a laptop or a Windows CE handheld will be able to replace their EKG, BP cuffs, pulse oximeters, and spirometers with a PC card."
Jason Evans, M.D.
"Hello to the folks at QRS!
I am writing today because your product line would be very useful in my job. I am a home health nurse.. and have dreamt for years about computer devices that would speed up the time consuming and expensive tasks involved in taking vital signs, lugging around the pulse oximetry machine (if one is available), then having to return it to the office (32 miles round trip), and having to record mountains of patient information again and again on every patient. We used to get rhythm strips on patients but stopped because we couldn't transmit the information to the M.D., at least not in a timely fashion. So we do everything with paper and pencil, just like nurses did 200 years ago, I suppose. So when I saw your banner in "All Things CE" I just couldn't believe it, finally somebody invented the wheel. I was ready to order every item on your menu, I could use all of them"..
I was just waiting for the day my CE device could take and record vitals, oximetry readings, EKG strips, etc., and date stamp the results with the patients' I.D., this would save me at least five hours per week and who knows the value of having consistently accurate, reliable data. This translates to over $5,000 a year just in salary alone! Every home health agency in the country will be knocking on your door!"
Fred Hondel R.N.
"Just a few words about the technology coming out of your shop. As a NASA Commercial Space Center for medical informatics, we are constantly looking into techniques and equipment to enhance patient data collection. Part of our mandate is to seek out innovative solutions from industrial partners like QRS.
However, finding the technology is only part of the process. Our test beds take our researchers and physicians around the globe. From the elevations of Mt. Everest to the jungles of Ecuador, from the polar extremes of the Arctic Circle to the war-torn regions of Kosovo, we pack, ship, haul and re-assemble portable telemedicine systems in quite a few interesting places. We have taken the (SpiroCard) to some of these places as well as numerous trade shows. I am particularly impressed with the user-friendly activation and heuristic interface.
We have recently acquired the new SpirOxCard and look forward to testing it as well. Thank you QRS for your persistent attention to not only technical requirements but also the human interface."
Brett Harnett
Director, Experimental IT
NASA Medical Informatics & Technology Applications Consortium
"The new peripherals developed by QRS Diagnostic provide an opportunity for improving disease management for patients with Asthma, CHF, COPD and Cardiac conditions. The QRS medical device system promises to connect patients and their providers with a wide variety of platforms across the Internet."
Barb Johnston,
Clinical Nurse Specialist
Kaiser Permanente
"I would like to commend your company for producing and marketing a fine product for the evaluation of pulmonary function for asthmatics and COPD patients. In my office, we have five examination rooms. We had a pulmonary function system from Multispiro set up for 10 years. The problem we ran into was we had to move patients from room to room, which created an internal gridlock slowing our efficiency. In addition, with the Y2K problem looming we needed to upgrade our equipment. We purchased your equipment and added it to one of our exam rooms. Its integration was seamless. There was no learning curve. The interface with windows was perfect allowing novice and expert computer users to perform the test right out of the box. Also, using the PCMCIA card slot allowed us to set the unit up on a portable computer that we were able to take to the hospitals for instant bedside evaluations. We have performed over 100 evaluations with the SpiroCard over the last year with no problems."
Robert Zuckerman, MD
Allergy & Asthma Specialist
"QRS' SpiroCard offers frontline physicians a really useful, reasonably priced way to practice state of the art medicine. Using a single device physicians will be able to monitor several vital functions simultaneously."
Patrick Zook, MD
"I am writing to tell you about my experience with the SpiroCard. I have used the PC-based spirometer since March 1, 1999 when I started a private practice in Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. I do spirometry every week, both for newly diagnosed asthma patients and for follow up studies. I chose to purchase the SpiroCard because of the portability, ease of learning the testing procedure, and cost. I like the fact that each patient has a new pneumotach to use it eliminates the necessity of frequent calibration."
Irene Jarmoszuk, MD
Board Certified Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
"The Office Medic software from QRS will help address the trend in home respiratory care by screening patients with pulmonary disease before the disease progresses to a more acute stage. The innovative PC Card approach provides flexibility for clinicians to use the technology today and add to the diagnostic inventory in the future."
Robert McCoy, RRT BSM
"The physician's ability to obtain vital data at the point of care is essential if we are to improve outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.. Adaptable technologies that provide this degree of accuracy and affordability bring the goal of ambulatory disease management one step closer to reality."
Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD,
Director of Medical Informatics, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
Chairman, Clinical Information Systems of the American Medical Informatics Association
"We purchased our QRS SpiroCard in the spring of 1999 to replace our Collins spirometry equipment that was not Y2K compliant. Our department averages 10-15 spirometry tests per month". Its size and portability makes testing in patient rooms easier and the unit is very user friendly. If you are considering purchasing new spirometry equipment for your facility I would strongly recommend that you look at the QRS SpiroCard system."
Mark A. Forney, RRT
R.T. Director
Magruder Hospital
"PCT has for some time now been investigating measurement technologies for use in the home. QRS' approach is uniquely well suited to our company's vision of patient-oriented care management software. As the convergence of computing and consumer electronics enables simple, patient-oriented in-home information systems, the QRS technology is ideally suited to play a role in tomorrow's telecare systems."
Mark Braunstein, MD
President of Patient Care Technologies in Atlanta GA
"Based on what I have seen and tried to date about the PC Card Technology, it offers an excellent opportunity to improve the reliable mobile collection of critical objective measurements. The SpiroCard with its ability to perform a full set of reliable pulmonary function tests will assist many health care providers in improving their asthma disease management programs."
Leonard Bielory, MD
Director of Allergy and Immunology, University of Medical and Dentistry of New Jersey
Drs. Stanley Finkelstein and Stuart Speedie, who have pioneered the use of telemedicine and home monitoring methods at the University of Minnesota, are planning to use the QRS PC Card technology in a new telemedicine home health care study. According to Finkelstein, "The SpiroCard will be used for regular monitoring of patient lung function from the patient's home. QRS is a partner with the University in this study recently funded by the Department of Commerce. The premise of the study is that telemedicine-based home monitoring will enhance the frequency and quality of patient-caregiver interaction in the home health care setting. This new QRS line of multi-parameter PC Card monitors should make home monitoring easier and less expensive, thus contributing to the potential success of this study."
"I currently use the SpiroCard in my pulmonary function lab.. I was looking for an affordable spirometer that was portable as I do testing at health fares and other like functions. "The SpiroCard met all my needs. I have been using the SpiroCard for nine months now and I have not had any technical problems with the card. I am still very happy with my choice of purchasing the SpiroCard."
Cindy Benson, RRT
Director of Respiratory Care
Audubon County Memorial Hospital
"I've owned the QRS SpiroCard for approximately one year and recently have been using it four or five times per day for spirometry studies on my patients. I purchased the SpiroCard principally because of its size and portability; it's small and light and very easy to transport from one office to another. I really like the ease and rapidity with which the SpiroCard can be plugged into any computer with a PCMCIA slot and used to so pulmonary function studies on my patients."
Leonard W. Kaplan, M.D.
Allergy & Immunology
"The SpiroCard system makes full-function spirometry both portable and more affordable for a variety of healthcare providers including hospitals and clinics... and eventually could be used at home to monitor patients with chronic lung diseases and provide long-term monitoring data to their physicians."
Richard E. Jahnke
Medical Graphics' President and CEO