Medical University of South Carolina joins forces with Butterfly Network to transform patient care, health education, and medical research

Butterfly Blueprint to enable MUSC clinicians, students, and researchers to redefine how AI-powered, handheld ultrasound can be used in innovative ways to benefit patients at the point-of-care

Butterfly Network, Inc. (NYSE: BFLY), a digital health company transforming care with handheld, whole-body ultrasound, and The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) announced today that MUSC will leverage Butterfly Blueprint,™ the company’s system-wide ultrasound platform. Together with Butterfly, MUSC aims to transform patient care, health education, and medical research by empowering its clinicians, students, and researchers with point-of-care access to AI-powered, handheld ultrasound.

“At MUSC, we strive to stay on the front-end of innovation to advance how we educate and train healthcare providers and serve the people of South Carolina,” said Patrick Cawley, M.D., MUSC Health CEO and executive vice president of Health Affairs, University. “With Butterfly’s technology, we’re empowering care teams to know more about what’s going on with a patient sooner by quickly and easily gaining visibility inside the body so they can make more informed care decisions. We’re excited to bring such an evolved point-of-care ultrasound tool to our health system. We believe it will have tremendous impact across all care settings and especially in our rural and underserved settings, where access to specialists and imaging can be very difficult for some patients to manage or afford.”

As the world’s first and only whole-body Ultrasound-On-Chip™ technology capable of turning a compatible smartphone or tablet into an imaging tool, Butterfly enables the practical application of ultrasound information into the clinical workflow of all healthcare practitioners. Butterfly enables image acquisition and interpretation of different areas of the body and can be used for things like automated bladder volume calculations with 3D visualizations and to ease and guide central line placement and injections. The device fits in a healthcare professional’s pocket and is powered by a unique combination of cloud-connected software and hardware technology, easily accessed through a mobile app.

MUSC executive vice president for Academic Affairs and provost Lisa K. Saladin, PT, PhD, agreed, adding: “It is critical that we provide our students opportunities to train with advanced technologies that they will be using to assess and treat patients both during their clinical rotations as students and after graduation as healthcare providers. We are excited about this collaboration and the opportunities it will provide for our students.”

MUSC will begin its Butterfly rollout initially focusing on practitioners and clinicians at MUSC Health Florence Medical Center, MUSC Health Marion Medical Center, and at the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina as named by U.S. News & World Report, Charleston-based University Medical Center. A major component of the affiliation will be defining new models of care in rural settings with the help of this technology, hence the immediate deployment at two of the hospitals in MUSC’s Regional Health Network: Marion Medical Center and Florence Medical Center. At the same time, MUSC will also work with Butterfly to incorporate point-of-care ultrasound training across the organization, including within its education curriculum for medical students, nurse practitioners, and physicians’ assistants, in addition to exploring areas for clinical research.

“It is an incredible opportunity to partner with MUSC in our shared objective of improving clinical decision-making with an easy-to-use, AI-enabled imaging tool that is accessible at the point-of-care,” said Todd M. Fruchterman, M.D., Ph.D., Butterfly Network’s president and CEO. “Together with MUSC, we’re thrilled to explore how Butterfly can enhance patient care, advance medical education, and model a new standard of care delivery for the next generation of clinicians and care teams. We believe the information that becomes available when Butterfly is deployed at scale has the power to improve diagnostic accuracy and efficiency across care settings and throughout an enterprise.”

To learn more about Butterfly Blueprint™, the platform MUSC will deploy, please visit https://www.butterflynetwork.com/blueprint or to view a demo of Butterfly iQ+ please visit https://www.butterflynetwork.com/.

The EMED Press Reel was provided by Butterfly and must include the following disclaimer if used: Butterfly iQ+ is a prescription device intended for trained healthcare professionals only.

Those in the interview video, in order:

Aalap Shah MD – Emergency Medicine

Patrick J. Cawley, M.D., MBA (CEO, MUSC Health and Vice President for Health Affairs, University)

Ron McKee, the system administrator for imaging at MUSC Health

Donna Kern MD

Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education

 

About Medical University of South Carolina

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the state’s only comprehensive academic health system, with a unique mission to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates more than 3,000 students in six colleges – Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy – and trains more than 850 residents and fellows in its health system. MUSC brought in more than $327.6 million in research funds in fiscal year 2021, leading the state overall in research funding. MUSC also leads the state in federal and National Institutes of Health funding, with more than $220 million. For information on academic programs, visit musc.edu.

As the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality and safest patient care while educating and training generations of outstanding health care providers and leaders to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Patient care is provided at 14 hospitals with approximately 2,500 beds and five additional hospital locations in development; more than 350 telehealth sites, with connectivity to patients’ homes; and nearly 750 care locations situated in all regions of South Carolina. In 2021, for the seventh consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets totaling $4.4 billion. The nearly 25,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers, scientists, students, affiliates and care team members who deliver and support groundbreaking education, research, and patient care.

 

About Butterfly Network

Founded by Dr. Jonathan Rothberg in 2011 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange through a business combination with Longview Acquisition Corp., Butterfly created the world’s first handheld, single probe whole-body ultrasound system using semiconductor technology, the Butterfly iQ+. Butterfly’s mission is to democratize medical imaging and contribute to the aspiration of global health equity, making high-quality ultrasound affordable, easy-to-use, globally accessible, and intelligently connected, including for the 4.7 billion people around the world lacking access to ultrasound. Through its proprietary Ultrasound-on-Chip™ technology, Butterfly is paving the way for earlier detection and remote management of health conditions around the world. The Butterfly iQ+ can be purchased online today by healthcare practitioners in the United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Butterfly iQ+ is a prescription device intended for trained healthcare professionals only.