Prepare for a test, understand a monitoring or treatment plan, and organize the information your care team needs. These patient guides include source links and practical resources for appointments and follow-up.
Tests, imaging and symptoms
Ultrasound: What to Expect and What Portable Scans Can Answer
Prepare for an ultrasound, understand focused bedside scans and Doppler imaging, and clarify how you will receive the results.
MRI Machines: What They Look Like and What to Expect
A patient guide to MRI scanner designs, safety screening, comfort, contrast questions, and preparation for an examination.
Blood Draws and IV Access: Preparing for Venipuncture
Prepare for a blood draw or IV placement, communicate needle anxiety and previous difficulties, and know what follow-up to ask for.
Endoscopy Explained: Tests, Preparation, and Results
A practical guide to digestive endoscopy: procedure differences, preparation, sedation questions, biopsy results, aftercare, and the role of AI detection aids.
Capsule Endoscopy: Uses, Preparation, and Limitations
Understand small-bowel, colon, and upper-GI capsule tests, their limitations, preparation questions, retention risks, and MRI precautions.
Children’s Headaches: Recording Symptoms and Preparing for Evaluation
Recognize concerning headache patterns, keep a useful symptom diary, use children’s drawings as communication, and prepare for a clinical evaluation.
Monitoring and ongoing care
Wireless ECG Monitoring: Telemetry, Holters, and Patches
Understand how heart rhythm monitors record and share information, keep a useful symptom log, and clarify device instructions and follow-up.
Implantable Defibrillators: Purpose, Follow-Up, and Everyday Questions
Understand how an ICD differs from a pacemaker or AED, how benefits and risks are discussed, and what to ask about follow-up, shocks, and daily life.
Glucose Monitoring: Meters, CGMs, and Insulin-Pump Integration
Compare blood glucose meters, continuous glucose monitors, and automated insulin delivery, with practical questions about alerts, compatibility, supplies, and support.
Diabetes Explained: Types, Testing, and Ongoing Care
Understand the main diabetes types, how clinical testing differs from home monitoring, and what to discuss when building an ongoing care plan.
Home Health Monitoring: From Health Buddy to Today’s Care Programs
Understand the Health Buddy model and ask how a home monitoring program collects readings, reviews them, responds and supports patients.
Dialysis Catheters: Purpose, Access Options, and Care-Team Questions
Understand a hemodialysis catheter’s role, compare access options, and clarify infection prevention, follow-up and urgent contact arrangements.
TPN Explained: Nutrition Through a Vein and Planning for Home
Understand parenteral nutrition, its monitoring needs, and the training, supplies and support to arrange before home treatment.
Records and communication
Electronic Medical Records: Request, Check, and Transfer Your Information
Request original medical records and imaging studies, check their completeness, ask for corrections, and confirm that the receiving practice can use them.
Portable Medical Records: Build a Useful Health Summary
Create a dated health summary, obtain supporting records, and share the right documents securely for appointments, travel, and changes of care.
Contacting Your Doctor: Find the Right Channel and Write a Useful Message
Find your practice’s official contact route, choose a portal message or phone call, and write a clear request that staff can route appropriately.
Treatment choices and recovery
Stitches: Types, Aftercare, and Follow-Up
Understand dissolving and removable stitches, confirm wound-specific care, and prepare for follow-up or stitch removal.
Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery: Compare the Procedure and Alternatives
Identify the proposed spinal operation, compare its goals and alternatives, and prepare questions about risks, recovery and a second opinion.
Laser Vision Correction: Procedures, Tradeoffs, and Questions
Compare LASIK, PRK, and small-incision lenticule extraction, understand candidacy and visual tradeoffs, and prepare questions for a surgeon.
Robotic Surgery: What the System Does and How to Compare Options
Understand surgeon-controlled robotic systems, compare open and laparoscopic approaches, evaluate procedure-specific evidence, and prepare consultation questions.
AI in medicine
10 Ways AI is Transforming Medicine
Explore AI in medical imaging, documentation, research and clinical workflows, including evidence, privacy and human oversight.
Historical medical reporting
These 16 legacy articles preserve earlier product announcements and technology reporting. The dates and descriptions below identify their historical scope; product availability, approvals and clinical claims should be checked against current sources.
Earlier imaging and examination technology
- Tissue oxygenation imaging
2017 product reporting on superficial tissue oxygenation and perfusion assessment.
- Olympus gastrointestinal endoscopy devices
2017 reporting on therapeutic endoscopy instruments and related products.
- Endoscopic digital camera head
2005 reporting on camera coupling and surgical visualization equipment.
- 3D dental patient education
2005 reporting on animated explanations and consultation software.
- Ambient lighting in radiology
2004 reporting on a patient-oriented imaging-room design.
- Voice-activated ultrasound
2003 demonstration of voice controls for ultrasound equipment.
- Blue lasers for biomedical instruments
2004 reporting on a 488 nm laser for laboratory and imaging applications.
Earlier treatment and support devices
- Smart medication patch prototype
2017 reporting on a transdermal-patch concept with an electronic display.
- Antimicrobial pediatric catheter
2005 product and approval reporting concerning central venous catheters.
- Distal radioulnar joint replacement
2005 reporting on a wrist-area forearm-joint prosthesis.
- Femoral artery access-site closure
2004 reporting on vascular closure after catheter-based procedures.
- Temporary total artificial heart
2004 approval reporting on a bridge-to-transplant device.
- Mobile chest drainage
2003 product reporting on a compact chest-drain system.
- Therapeutic warming and aerospace materials
2004 aerospace-manufacturing story with a brief therapeutic-device connection.
Earlier clinical computing and displays
- Medical thin-client workstation
2006 reporting on a fanless hospital computer and its contemporary software.
- Diagnostic imaging display
2005 reporting on color and grayscale medical display products.