GE Healthcare Provides Advanced Electrocardiogram (Ecg) Technologies To The Chinese Olympic Committee To Diagnose Cardiac Fitness Of Elite Athletes

Main Category: Sports Medicine / Fitness
Also Included In: Cardiovascular / Cardiology;  Medical Devices
Article Date: 05 Jun 2008 - 5:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

GE Healthcare, the US$17 billion healthcare business of General Electric Company (GE), today announced it will provide electrocardiogram technologies (ECG) to the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC). Such technologies will be used for diagnosing cardiac fitness of competing Chinese athletes to help ensure they achieve optimum performance during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Technologies provided to the COC will include two GE Healthcare MAC 5500 resting ECG, one Dash 4000 bed-side monitor and one CASE STRESS ECG (including the T2100 treadmill). GE Healthcare's ECG products are designed to help physicians in emerging markets, whether they work in a hospital setting or in a private practice, to better predict and diagnose patients at risk of heart disease.

Through training and competition, elite athletes put an enormous amount of stress on their hearts every day. The heart, like any other muscle, undergoes changes due to vigorous exercise. Performing regular ECGs on Olympic athletes is an easy, non-invasive way to measure the heart's beat, establish a baseline and assist physicians in detecting any possible abnormalities. While young, fit athletes are typically low-risk of having heart disease; however, there have been a number of high profile incidents of undetected cardiovascular disease amongst young athletes culminating into tragedies that might have been avoided.

Located at the Beijing Sports Medicine Hospital, GE Healthcare's electrocardiogram technologies will be used by clinicians for routine athlete medical examinations of China's National teams. Early diagnosis of an athlete's cardiac function allows clinicians to develop more adaptive training programs for each athlete and in turn prepare them in the best possible way for reaching gold medal.

"It is a great honor to be equipped with GE Healthcare leading ECG technologies as our clinicians will now be able to store and retrieve data more efficiently (even remotely) for every athlete, and in turn make faster, more confident assessments to provide better care. We greatly appreciate GE's commitment towards making the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games a success. The Chinese sports delegation is sure to make outstanding achievements and maintain a strong mental outlook during the Olympics in response to GE's support." says Jilong Ma, Director General, Marketing Commission of Chinese Olympic Committee.

GE Healthcare's MAC 5500 resting ECG is easy-to-use and comes with a suite of arrhythmia detection and ECG cardiovascular analysis and interpretation programs that allow clinicians to address a wider range of cardiac disease management needs.

"We are very pleased with GE Healthcare's commitment towards sports medicine. In relation to their leading ECG technologies, we are proud to use these and in turn provide such support to the COC, helping to ensure better care for China's elite athletes prior to, during and after the Olympic Games." commented Guoping Li, Director of National Institute of Sports Medicine, President of Beijing Sports Medicine Hospital, Chief Medical Officer of Chinese Olympic Committee.

"The combination of GE's legacy in clinical excellence, its trusted ECG quality and our high standards in manufacturing processes contribute to making the MAC 5500 a great solution for all physicians." said JK Koo, Vice President and General Manager, Clinical Systems, GE Healthcare, Asia.

GE Healthcare's CASE Stress system, also provided to the COC, is an exercise testing system that combines hardware and software to acquire, manage and store stress-testing data. During the stress test, the athlete is put on a treadmill and must go through a rigorous exercise protocol while their ECG information is acquired. Capturing an ECG during exercise provides physicians with valuable information regarding cardiac performance and heart rate recovery times.

The lightweight and wireless DASH 4000 Patient Monitor will provide the COC with the adaptability to handle virtually any monitoring situation. Clinicians can use this flexible device to monitor physiologic parameter data in assessing the well being of the athletes' cardiovascular performance during their rigorous training period for the Olympic Games.

"While GE Healthcare plays an important role in supporting the Olympic Games by providing medical imaging technologies for use on elite athletes, our products are designed and developed for use on all patient groups and populations in the hope of assisting experts to bridge existing healthcare gaps. We believe the way forward is from late disease to early health, allowing disease to be diagnosed earlier and allowing patients to live life to their fullest," added Chih Chen, President & CEO, GE Healthcare China.

GE Healthcare's big push for 'early health' relates to the fact that today 70-80 percent of the resources in healthcare are devoted to managing symptom based, advanced disease. If we can move from a 'late disease' approach to one where the focus is on predictive healthcare and early detection of disease, we have the potential to dramatically reduce the costs of late-stage disease treatment.

About GE and the Olympic Games

GE is the exclusive provider of a wide range of innovative products and services that are integral to staging a successful Olympic Games. GE works closely with host countries, cities and organizing committees to provide infrastructure solutions for Olympic venues including power, lighting, water treatment, transportation and security, and to supply hospitals with ultrasound and MRI equipment to help doctors treat athletes. In addition, NBC Universal, a division of GE, is the exclusive U.S. media partner of the Olympic Games, with its partnership also extending through 2012. For more information, visit http://www.ge.com/olympicgames.

About GE

GE (NYSE: GE) is Imagination at Work - a diversified technology, media and financial services company focused on solving some of the world's toughest problems. With products and services ranging from aircraft engines, power generation, water processing and security technology to medical imaging, business and consumer financing, media content and advanced materials. GE serves customers in more than 100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.ge.com

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.

GE Healthcare