GE caring for more than 10,500 athletes from over 200 countries at Beijing Games with advanced MRI, ultrasound and ECG technologies
Beijing - 01 July 2008 - GE Healthcare, the US$17 billion healthcare business of General Electric Company (GE), is working with medical leaders in the Olympic Movement to advance the use of innovative medical imaging technologies to provide insight into athlete health, as well as benefits for the general public. The company will supply a broad array of medical technologies, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound and electrocardiogram (ECG) to the Olympic Village General Hospital. In addition, three National Olympic Committees, including China, U.S. and Spain, and two Sports Federations will use GE Healthcare's compact ultrasound technology.
In line with GE Healthcare's 'Early Health' vision and its commitment to sports medicine, these technologies will assess the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal health of Olympic athletes before, during and after the Beijing Games.
''At GE Healthcare, when it comes to health and sport, we believe in saying 'the sooner the better,'" said Joe Hogan, GE Healthcare President and CEO. ''Athletes push their bodies to the limit everyday, which deserves and requires vigilant health monitoring. The simplicity and speed offered by our innovative medical imaging technology helps clinicians acquire an accurate diagnosis when it's most crucial, early on. This helps answer the question of whether an athlete can stay in competition and could mean the difference between winning the gold and an unnecessary trip to the emergency room.''
Supporting Olympic Games Medical Facilities In and Around Beijing
GE Healthcare will equip the Olympic Village General Hospital, which will offer comprehensive healthcare for all Olympic athletes and officials, with 308 MAC 1200 ECGs for use at Olympic venue sites. Additionally, the hospital will be equipped with the only five ultrasound systems and two MRI systems available at the Beijing Games.
Throughout Beijing, most of the 24 official Olympic Games hospitals will be equipped with GE technology providing additional medical support during the Games to accommodate an influx of more than one million visitors and journalists to the city's 15.2 million inhabitants.
''We are confident that the medical services provided at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will provide effective, high-quality treatment for all teams,'' said Prof. Dai Jianping, Deputy Head of the Games Services Department of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG). ''For most athletes, the Olympic Games is the culmination of a lifetime of training for what could be a 30-second opportunity to win a gold medal. In support of these athletes, BOCOG works with the top leaders in the medical industry, like GE, to provide the very best equipment, services and care.''
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, please visit www.ge.com/olympicgames.
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 47,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
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