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GE Healthcare Continues Design Partnership With Beaumont's Technology Usability Center

Posted on: Friday, 16 March 2007, 18:00 CDT

ROYAL OAK, Mich., March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- General Electric Healthcare (GE) has entered into a product development partnership with the Beaumont Technology Usability Center (BTUC) to improve the safety and ease of use of their medical technologies. BTUC engineers and clinical staff will assist the manufacturer through collaborative product development, usability testing and human factors engineering.

The first collaborative design effort of the two companies began in 2006 with a project to advance a telemetry monitoring system, a medical device that monitors patients' vital signs and triggers an alarm when a critical arrhythmia is detected.

An additional project commenced in January 2007, with the organizations seeking to improve GE's Ultrasound components. "Based on the product development successes resulting from GE's relationship with the BTUC, we are very pleased to begin this next project," says Alejandro Galindo, GE Healthcare's Global Service Technology Manager, Ultrasound Probes. "We are beginning this project in the early stage of conceptual design to gain valuable inputs to our prototype development. In this way, BTUC will improve customer satisfaction, speed our overall development time and save the cost of potential product rework in the later stages of design."

Strategically located within William Beaumont Hospital, the Technology Usability Center's clinical and human factors engineers are able to utilize the resources of the top-rated medical institution to test products for medical manufacturers. BTUC offers technology manufacturer's design inputs that can increase caregiver productivity, enhance ease of use, and advance patient safety.

"Oftentimes, medical device manufacturers inadvertently design products that could increase the risk of medical error," says Brian Vargo, a Clinical Engineer at the Beaumont Technology Usability Center. "GE is to be commended on its stellar dedication to mitigating health care risk and advancing patient safety. This project will also provide them with designs that are more readily accepted by health care clinical staff."

About The Beaumont Technology Usability Center

The Beaumont Technology Usability Center is product development resource comprised of multidisciplinary health care experts affiliated with Beaumont Hospitals. Beaumont is comprised of two hospitals - including a 1,061-bed tertiary care, teaching, research and referral center in Royal Oak and a 254- bed acute care community teaching hospital in Troy. Beaumont also includes six community-based medical centers, rehabilitation, primary and specialty care clinics, four nursing centers, home care and hospice.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that are shaping a new age of patient care. 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.

Steve Ebben 248-551-2667 steve.ebben@beaumontservices.com

The Beaumont Technology Usability Center

CONTACT: Steve Ebben of The Beaumont Technology Usability Center,+1-248-551-2667, steve.ebben@beaumontservices.com

Web site: http://www.beaumontservices.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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