Clarius Mobile Health, which offers an AI-powered handheld ultrasound, announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence (AI) education tool that helps new users quickly master ultrasound breast anatomy while scanning with Clarius ultrasound.

Accelerating Learning for Plastic Surgeons

According to the company, the latest of five AI-training modes invented by Clarius, T-Mode for breast helps plastic surgeons recognize key breast tissue layers in real time to accelerate learning and improve confidence in performing in-clinic ultrasound-guided procedures and exams.

Demonstration at The Aesthetics Meeting 2025

Clarius will demonstrate T-Mode for breast at The Aesthetics Meeting in Austin, Tex from March 20 to 23, 2025.

Addressing the Shortage of Skilled Sonographers

Clarius reportedly developed the training tool to help address the growing demand for clinicians skilled in conducting breast exams. While the FDA recommends that breast implant patients undergo ultrasound breast exams every 2 to 3 years, the shortage of skilled sonographers has created long wait times for patients. Many plastic surgeons are using ultrasound in their practice and seek training to increase their proficiency with reading grey scale images, which are notoriously difficult to interpret for new users.

Expert Insights on Clarius T-Mode

Marc Salzman, MD, a double board-certified plastic surgeon and ultrasound educator who published a paper on the benefits of using ultrasound for breast implant surveillance, helped test the new feature during its development and said, “Clarius T-Mode for breast is very helpful in teaching breast ultrasound and will help novice physicians adopt ultrasound. It shortens the learning curve for recognizing the different layers of tissue, the capsule, and the implant itself.”

How T-Mode Enhances Ultrasound Training

When activated during an exam with a Clarius ultrasound scanner, T-Mode creates an adjacent image with distinctive graphics and text labels that help new ultrasound users instantly identify anatomical structures. T-Mode is also available for Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) procedures, facial aesthetics, and musculoskeletal applications.

Clarius’ Commitment to Innovation in Plastic Surgery

“Clarius continues to raise the bar with T-Mode for breast imaging,” says Pat Pazmiño, MD, FACS, a plastic surgeon who practices in Miami. “The use of artificial intelligence to help identify tissue planes helps to shorten the learning curve so that clinicians can focus on the patient.”

According to Clarius, Pazmiño, a long-time Clarius user and advocate for ultrasound use by plastic surgeons, was instrumental in advocating for the first plastic surgery law that has been passed in Florida. In effect on July 1, 2023, the bill mandates the use of ultrasound guidance during gluteal fat grafting procedures to protect patient safety. Pazmiño also supported the development of T-Mode for Gluteal Grafting.

High-Resolution Imaging at a Fraction of the Cost

Clarius offers a range of purpose-built specialty handheld wireless ultrasound scanners designed to provide high-definition imaging for multiple clinical applications. These devices are designed to deliver high-resolution imaging equivalent to the best traditional cart-based systems for a small fraction of the cost using an app for iOS and Android smart devices, according to the company.

Availability of Clarius T-Mode

Clarius T-Mode is available with Clarius Membership and the new One-Time License along with specialized presets, unlimited cloud storage, Voice Controls, and other features designed for plastic surgery.

Photo: Clarius

Relatient has introduced Dash Direct, an open scheduling API platform designed to help healthcare organizations automate patient interactions within their existing technology systems. The platform reportedly enables appointment booking, rescheduling, and cancellations without staff intervention, integrating with various patient access tools, including virtual agents, appointment reminders, and chatbots.

As the company explains, self-service scheduling adoption is growing, but many routine patient interactions—such as confirming or canceling appointments, updating insurance details, and booking referral visits—still require staff involvement. These processes often rely on call centers, faxes, and other manual workflows, leading to scheduling backlogs and administrative burdens. Dash Direct aims to streamline these tasks by allowing patients to manage appointments independently through digital platforms.

“We hear all the time from our clients that the simplest appointment and administrative tasks collectively take up most of their staff’s time,” said Jeff Gartland, CEO of Relatient. “Dash Direct opens a new toolkit, enabling healthcare organizations to solve that problem through better interoperability across every point of patient access.”

The platform supports multiple digital access points, including:

• Virtual agents: Patients can book, reschedule, and update information without staff assistance.
• AI-enabled chatbots: Scheduling can be integrated into existing chat functions.
• Referral scheduling: Third parties can schedule patients in real time, reducing manual follow-ups.
• Financial clearance: Insurance verification and updates can be automated.
• Virtual care integration: Patients can transition from triage to booked appointments seamlessly.

Marie D’Aiuto, director of patient access at Florida Orthopaedic Institute, said her organization has seen significant improvements since adopting Dash Direct. “By integrating automated scheduling logic into our phone trees, we’ve reduced the workload of three to four full-time staff members—potentially freeing up thousands of hours annually.”

Dash Direct integrates with existing healthcare technology vendors and follows provider scheduling rules to maintain accuracy and efficiency. The platform is available for custom implementations and out-of-the-box deployments.

Photo: ID 141370391 © Rido | Dreamstime.com

Key Takeaways

1. The FDA has granted additional clearance for Morpheus8 for soft-tissue contraction and dermatologic skin procedures requiring coagulation or contraction of soft tissue or hemostasis.
2. InMode has launched the IgniteRF and OptimasMAX platforms, featuring a range of Morpheus8 handpieces and supporting 14 different technologies for various treatments.
3. Morpheus8 has performed over 2.5 million procedures worldwide, averaging 8.2 treatments per minute.

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The U.S. FDA has granted additional 510(k) clearance for Morpheus8, a fractional radiofrequency microneedling technology, for soft-tissue contraction. The Morpheus8 Applicators are also cleared for dermatologic skin procedures requiring coagulation or contraction of soft tissue or hemostasis, expanding the technology’s existing clearance.

Launch of New IgniteRF and OptimasMAX Platforms

Coinciding with this clearance is the launch of the new IgniteRF and OptimasMAX platforms, which include the Morpheus8 line of handpieces. The modular portfolio includes Prime 12 pin, Morpheus8 24 pin, Resurfacing 24 pin, and Morpheus8 40 pin tips, making the technology versatile. The IgniteRF and OptimasMAX platforms support 14 technologies, including minimally invasive radiofrequency-assisted soft tissue coagulation and contraction, non-invasive thermal radiofrequency, intense pulsed light skin treatments, and multi-wavelength hair reduction.”

Expanding Patient Base for Morpheus8 Practitioners

“InMode is dedicated to investing in R&D so we can provide medical professionals with continued advancements they need to deliver the highest quality of care and best-in-class results,” says InMode CEO Moshe Mizrahy. “The new indication for soft tissue contraction enhances the product’s intended use, helping Morpheus8 practitioners expand their patient base.”

Company officials add that Morpheus8 has performed over 2.5 million procedures worldwide, averaging 8.2 treatments per minute.

“T-Mode is the beginning of a new era of ultrasound learning where AI acts as our ‘teacher’ or ‘guide’,” says Stefania Roberts, MBBS, FRACGP, FRACP, a phlebologist and cosmetic physician practicing in Melbourne, Australia. “The learning curve to master ultrasound is steep, but with T-Mode, one can examine the temple region, lips, and cheek whereby fat, muscle, SMAS, and bone are shown in different colors and then labeled so the user can confirm what the different layers in the face look like.” 

Clarius handheld ultrasound scanners offer high-definition imaging in a compact, wireless design at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems. They are commonly used by plastic surgeons and aesthetics practitioners for ultrasound-guided procedures to ensure patient safety.

Pat Pazmiño, MD, FACS, who has been using Clarius at his Miami-based plastic surgery practice for six years, believes T-Mode AI will enhance learning of fat-grafting techniques: “Clarius continues their commitment to plastic surgery education with the introduction of T-Mode. This new interface allows surgeons to practice identifying the different subcutaneous layers and planning their fat grafting targets before they go to the OR.” 

T-Mode AI is available now for aesthetics and plastic surgery applications with Clarius wireless ultrasound scanners. Additional anatomical models supporting more medical specialties will be released over time. T-Mode AI is intended for educational and training purposes only. It is not intended for diagnostic use, interventional use, to guide injections, or for filler detection. Current users with membership can access the new feature through the latest version of the Clarius App. 

“The engineering team at Clarius has spent nearly a decade pushing the innovation barriers of ultrasound; we’ve removed wires, improved image quality and shrunk scanners to the size of an iPhone,” says Clarius Founder Laurent Pelissier. “And we’ve been using AI to make them easy to use.  But I believe T-Mode is the most groundbreaking technology we’ve seen since the invention of B-Mode in the ’70s and color doppler in the ’80s because it truly makes ultrasound easy to learn for novice users.

“Now we’re very excited to bring T-Mode to market to help more users unlock the power of ultrasound to deliver the best patient care,” Pelissier adds.

The findings, published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research by a team from the University of Michigan (U-M), show that using a form of AI called natural language processing to analyze a patient’s entire medical record can spot signs of risky drinking documented in their charts, such as in doctor’s notes, even when they don’t have a diagnosis of an alcohol problem.

Past research has shown that having more than a couple of drinks a day on average is associated with a higher risk of infections, wound complications, pulmonary complications, and prolonged hospital stays in people having surgery.

Many people who drink regularly don’t have a problem with alcohol, and when they do, they may never receive a formal diagnosis for alcohol use disorder or addiction, which would be easy for a surgical team to spot in their chart.

Scouring Surgical Records and Notes

The researchers, from Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center, trained their AI model by letting it review 100 anonymous surgical patients’ records to look for risky drinking signs, and comparing its classifications with those of expert human reviewers.

In all, the AI model matched the human expert classification most of the time. The AI model found signs of risky drinking in the notes of 87% of the patients who experts had identified as risky drinkers. Meanwhile, only 29% of these patients had a diagnosis code related to alcohol in their list of diagnoses. So, many patients with higher risk for complications would have slipped under the radar for their surgical team.

The researchers then allowed the AI model to review more than 53,000 anonymous patient medical records compiled through the Michigan Genomics Initiative. The AI model identified three times more patients with risky alcohol use through this full-text search than the researchers found using diagnosis codes. In all, 15% of patients met criteria via the AI model, compared to 5% via diagnosis codes.

“This evaluation of natural language processing to identify risky drinking in the records of surgical patients could lay the groundwork for efforts to identify other risks in primary care and beyond, with appropriate validation,” says V. G. Vinod Vydiswaran, PhD, lead author of the new paper and an associate professor of learning health sciences at the U-M Medical School. “Essentially, this is a way of highlighting for a provider what is already contained in the notes made by other providers, without them having to read the entire record.”

“Given the excess surgical risk that can arise from even a moderate amount of daily alcohol use, and the challenges of implementing robust screening and treatment in the pre-op period, it’s vital that we explore other options for identifying patients who could most benefit from reducing use by themselves or with help, beyond those with a recorded diagnosis,” adds senior author Anne Fernandez, Ph.D., an addiction psychologist at the U-M Addiction Center and Addiction Treatment Services and an associate professor of psychiatry.

The new data suggest that surgical clinics that simply review the diagnosis codes listed in their incoming patients’ charts, and flag ones such as alcohol use disorder, alcohol dependence, or alcohol-related liver conditions, would be missing many patients with elevated risk.

Alcohol + Surgery = Added Risk

In addition to known risks of surgical complications, Fernandez and colleagues recently published data from a massive Michigan surgical database showing that people who both smoke and have two or more drinks a day were more likely to end up back in the hospital, or back in the operating room, than others. Those with risky drinking who didn’t smoke also were more likely to need a second operation.

She and colleagues also found that 19% of people having surgery may have risky levels of alcohol use, in a review of detailed questionnaire data from people participating in two different studies that enroll people from Michigan Medicine surgery clinics.

The new study used the NLP form of AI not to generate new information, but to look for clues in the pages and pages of provider notes and data that make up a person’s entire medical record.

After validation, Vydiswaran says, the tool could potentially be run on a patient’s record before they are seen in a pre-operative appointment and identify their risk level. Just knowing that a person has a potentially risky level of drinking isn’t enough, of course.

Fernandez is leading an effort to test a virtual coaching approach to help people scheduled for surgery understand the risks related to their level of drinking and support them in reducing their intake.

“Our goal is to identify people who may be in need of more treatment services, including medication for alcohol use disorder and support during their surgical recovery when alcohol abstinence is necessary,” she says. “We are not aiming to replace the due diligence every provider must do, but to prompt them to talk with patients and get more information to act upon.”

The risks of combining alcohol with the opioid pain medications often used to treat post-surgical pain are very high, she notes. In addition to current work to validate the model, the team hopes to make their model publicly available, though it would have to be trained on the electronic records system of any health system that seeks to use it.

“These AI tools can do amazing things, but it’s important we use them to do things that could save time for busy clinicians, whether that’s related to alcohol or to drug use, disordered eating, or other chronic conditions,” says Fernandez. “And if we are going to use them to spot potential issues, we need to be ready to offer treatment options too.”

With surgeons performing hundreds of thousands of breast augmentations, lifts, and reduction procedures alone, and millions of other aesthetic procedures each year, solving the post-surgery fit issue is a priority for both health professionals and patients.

“At Marena, we have always been committed to providing the highest-quality compression garments to support patient healing,” says Colin Marafko, chief marketing and e-commerce officer of Marena. 

“This partnership with Fit:match enables us to take that commitment to a new level by ensuring the patient is in the ideal size and style garment for their unique anatomical characteristics and procedure,” adds CEO Dale Clendon. “The app not only ensures each patient is in the proper Marena garment, but also saves physicians time with manual measuring and increases their confidence that their patients will be satisfied with their results.”

Marena’s new sizing and garment selection app uses LiDAR and Fit:match’s AI-driven, 3D body-shape technology to scan surgery patients at recommended intervals both pre- and post-procedure to match them with the products that best fit their shape transformation at every stage. To receive their recommended matches, a patient registers in the new app on an iPhone. 

A staff member in their doctor’s office then completes the 360-degree scan using the phone, which takes less than 20 seconds. The app instantly analyzes the patient’s unique body-shape data and suggests the size and style of garment that will provide the best fit at each post-operative stage to best support their recovery.

This new app ensures:

• Precise size and fit: The app predicts the right garment and size based on a patient’s anatomical characteristics and the procedure they are undergoing. This enhances comfort and effectiveness during the recovery process, according to Marena officials.
• Efficiency and ease of use: Physicians can integrate the app into their patient consultations, streamlining the product selection and sizing process and reducing the need for extensive manual measurements.
• An enhanced patient experience: By matching patients with garments that fit, the app will contribute to increased comfort and compliance, leading to faster recovery times and improved overall patient satisfaction, Marena officials say.

“We are thrilled to bring our tech-enabled retail solution to the post-surgical recovery space in partnership with Marena, a brand that has long led innovation in post-surgical and compression garment technology,” says Haniff Brown, founder and CEO of Fit:match. “This launch will help eliminate the guesswork plastic surgeons and their patients have traditionally faced when selecting post-op recovery wear.”

“In our quest to find the best technology for us to use for both ophthalmology and aesthetic medicine, we tested many handheld ultrasound devices,” says Sandy X. Zhang-Nunes, MD, associate professor of clinical medicine. “We decided to approach it scientifically and do a study in an unbiased manner.”

The study, titled “A comparison of five point-of-care ultrasound devices for use in ophthalmology and facial aesthetics” and published by Sage Journals, sought to help clinicians choose the best point-of-care ultrasound suited to their needs. Three clinicians scanned volunteer patients to obtain ultrasound images of eight arteries, four ocular and periocular structures, and areas of filler injections. The images were then rated by graders on a four-point scale on quality. 

“The L20 received the highest image quality rankings,” the study notes, “followed by the L15 … (p < 0.05).” The study also suggested that clinicians consider factors beyond image quality when choosing the best point-of-care ultrasound device, including cost, wireless capabilities, range of presets, and battery life.

The Clarius L20 HD3 portable ultrasound system offers specialized imaging for facial aesthetics with automatic presets, responding to the growing demand in this field. Clarius officials say it’s the only specialty-designed handheld ultrasound with ultra-high frequency to 20 MHz, which shows detailed imaging from the skin to a depth of 4 centimeters. Vessel Depth AI enables clinicians to automatically measure the shallowest flow found in real-time using artificial intelligence to streamline workflows.

“There’s really no competition with the handheld market in terms of an aesthetic device,” says Dani Sher, a physician assistant who uses the Clarius L20 at her Sparkle Aesthetics Medical Spa and teaches ultrasound for aesthetics. 

“It’s got a very small footprint and I think Clarius has done a really great job evolving the product to meet the demands of the injectors,” Sher adds. “They’ve come up with new presets, which are very elegant for each area of the face. Voice Controls is a whole new groundbreaking achievement and I really love the resolution you can get with Clarius. You can see filler very well and I’ve been able to diagnose some really interesting complications with it.”

Clarius scanners are affordable wireless ultrasound systems that work with iOS and Android apps, according to company officials. The company introduced the Clarius Power Fan HD3 accessory for continuous power and cooling, enabling uninterrupted scanning in clinics and during teaching sessions. This handheld device allows 24/7 ultrasound scanning.

This bill was sent to the governor’s office who signed it into law. As of July 1, Florida physicians who perform gluteal fat grafting must use ultrasound guidance to clearly see that fat is injected only in the subcutaneous space and never into the muscle. When fat graft have inadvertently been injected into the gluteal muscle, the fat has traveled to the heart, lungs, and brain with fatal results.

“We’re elated that ultrasound is now the law of the land in Florida for BBLs. This is the first time a plastic surgery law has passed,” says plastic surgeon  Pat Pazmiño MD, FACS. “The Florida Society of Plastic Surgeons has worked for decades as advocates for patient safety. We were honored to sponsor this bill and lobby government officials to protect patients. We are grateful that Governor DeSantis signed our bill into law and helped make legislative history! And we’re also thankful to the team at Clarius for their incredible help and support.” 

Gluteal fat grafts, or Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBLs) as they are commonly known, are considered to have one of the highest mortality rates of any cosmetic surgery, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. To ensure safer procedures, the new Florida law also mandates that surgeons cannot meet the patient for the first time on the day of the surgery and that a surgeon cannot delegate the surgical procedure to a nurse or an assistant.

Pazmiño has used ultrasound at his Miami practice for more than a decade and created the ultraBBL^TM procedure, which combines innovative aesthetic surgery techniques with ultrasound guidance to ensure the safest outcomes. He currently uses the Clarius L7 HD₃ wireless ultrasound. 

Amanda Leyva, a patient who underwent BBL surgery a year ago, says she thought long and hard before undergoing the procedure. Her research to find the best plastic surgeon in Miami led her to Pazmiño. 

“I was really excited to meet with him in person for a consult as most plastic surgeons in the area just want you to send in photos and then you go in for surgery before you’ve met them,” she said in a recent video interview. “We talked about the procedure and about how he does it a little bit differently with the ultrasound technology that it makes it so much safer. Knowing that Dr. Pazmiño uses ultrasound gave me the confidence that I would be ok. It gave me exactly what I was looking for. There were no complications, everything went really well.” 

The new Florida State law follows the adoption of the 90-day Emergency Rule (64B8ER22-3) filed by the Board of Medicine and authorized by the Florida Department of State on June 14^th, 2022. It also mandated the use of “ultrasound guidance when placing and navigating the cannula and injecting fat into the subcutaneous space,” and furthermore, required the surgeon to “maintain the ultrasound video recording in the patient’s medical record including the time and the date stamp.” 

“Within a month of the Emergency Rule, roughly half of the plastic surgeons in the state acquired a Clarius wireless scanner, rather than canceling surgeries,” says Clarius President and CEO Ohad Arazi. 

“The Clarius L7 HD₃ delivers high-resolution imaging to improve procedural safety in an affordable ultrasound solution that features advanced plastic surgery software, a dedicated BBL Preset, and Procedure Recording Mode to help surgeons stay ahead of evolving regulations,” Arazi adds. “At Clarius, we’re grateful for our close collaboration with trailblazing physicians like Dr. Pat Pazmiño who help pave the way for better patient safety.”  

Plastic surgeons are invited to visit the Clarius Classroom and webinar center for free video resources to learn industry leading ultrasound best practices. They feature renowned plastic surgeons like Pat Pazmiño, MD, FACS, Marc Salzman, MD, FACS, Steven Weiner, MD, Alexis Delobaux, MD, and others who share best practices for improving patient safety across a variety of aesthetic procedures, from BBLs, to breast surveillance, to facial fillers. 

Specifically, eyebrows can be adjusted for spacing, height, and bend, while eyes can be altered in shape, size, spacing, squint, lower eyelid size, and position. Moreover, the nose can be fine-tuned for width, length, and tip size, while the mouth offers options for size, smile, shape, and lip thickness. Cheeks and cheekbones can be augmented or diminished, and the chin’s length, width, and V-shape can be modified to achieve desired results.

The applications of this upgraded face morphing feature are various. Not only can it simulate the potential outcomes of plastic surgery procedures, but it also allows for easy photo editing, appearance alterations during video calls, and more. Also, the face-morphing functionality can be combined with other features like face touch-up.

Furthermore, this advanced functionality will be integrated into the TINT makeup virtual try-on platform, enhancing its virtual try-on experience. In addition to the face-morphing capabilities, the v1.7 update also brings a performance boost. This is notable for WebAR SDK and lower-end smartphones that may have limited processing power. 

With the new Turbo mode, the face tracking system skips certain frames when detecting a face, reducing the device’s load while maintaining accuracy. In the web-based version, this option is enabled by default.

Another upgrade is the performance update for virtual backgrounds, a popular feature, product designers say. Apple device users will especially benefit from this update, as it delivers up to 10 times faster performance.

With new AI-powered Voice Controls, users don’t have to put down the Clarius ultrasound scanner mid-procedure or ask an assistant to adjust the image. Users speak commands such as freeze, adjust gain and depth, capture images and videos, and switch imaging modes. 

Voice Controls will initially be available in English only. To develop Voice Controls, Clarius recorded thousands of voice commands and used machine learning algorithms to teach the software to recognize and perform key imaging functions. Users standing within a meter of the smart device will be able to use voice commands to adjust gain and depth, freeze images, switch imaging modes, and to capture images and video. Clarius Voice Controls also work seamlessly with wireless headsets.

“I think the addition of the Voice Controls feature is brilliant,” says John Arlette, MD, a dermatologist whose practice is focused on injectable therapies, cosmetic therapy, and aesthetic management. “Instead of reaching for the touch screen to make a change with what you’re seeing on the screen, you can use Voice Controls to capture an image or capture a video clip. Procedures are faster and I can focus on the patient instead of being distracted by mechanical adjustments to the settings on my device.”

Clarius has tested the new feature with clinicians from a variety of specialties, including plastic surgery.

“Voice Controls have proven to be useful on traditional ultrasound systems and we’re excited to offer this premium feature to all Clarius members,” says Kris Dickie, vice president of research and development at Clarius. “Our goal is to continue making innovative features available on all Clarius handheld scanners for a small fraction of the cost that is currently the norm for premium ultrasound systems. Every clinician should have access to a high-quality ultrasound system to improve patient care.”