GE’s LOGIQ 7 Ultrasound System Offers New Cardiovascular Imaging And Voice-Activation Capabilities

For More Information Contact:
Kristin Binns
262-544-3616
kristin.binns@ge.com

November 29, 2004

Chicago, Illinois – GE Healthcare is introducing new cardiovascular imaging features, as well as VoiceScan voice activation, on its LOGIQ 7 premium ultrasound system for shared services, at the Radiological Society of North America’s 90th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Together, these new features are designed to address two important topics in ultrasound today: 1) serving the growing cardiovascular patient population and 2) addressing sonographers’ high rates of stress-related injuries.

The new LOGIQ 7 system provides a full range of general imaging applications including abdominal, small parts, surgery and vascular, as well as a full suite of applications to support the growing number of cardiovascular procedures. The system’s proven transesophogeal scanning and stress echo capabilities are complemented by a new set of quantitative tools to provide more precise methods for analyzing data. These new quantitative cardiovascular tools include Tissue Velocity Imaging (TVI); Tissue Velocity Doppler (TVD); and Q-Analysis, which use numerical scores and mapping techniques to help increase diagnostic confidence.

Applying the latest in wireless and speech recognition technologies, LOGIQ 7 now offers VoiceScan for hands-free voice command and track ball control of the system. With VoiceScan, clinicians can use intuitive words and phrases to activate more than 150 functions with exceptional accuracy – providing the freedom to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. In a recent study of 87 patient exams conducted at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Southhaven, Mississippi, VoiceScan was shown to improve overall scanning techniques and body mechanics, as well as patient comfort during difficult exams.

Victoria Walker, clinical sonographer at Baptist Memorial, noted the many ergonomic benefits of VoiceScan: "It enables me to get into a position to optimize an image and not strain my body in the process. Overall, my body ergonomics are better.”

Image quality continues to be the cornerstone of the LOGIQ 7 system. Industry-leading features such as CrossXBeam spatial compounding and Coded Ultrasound acquisition deliver the outstanding imaging performance that has established LOGIQ 7 as the system of choice for shared services. LOGIQ 7 now also offers GE’s patented Speckle Reduction Imaging (SRI) feature - an adaptive, real-time software algorithm that reduces the speckle artifact inherent to ultrasound imaging and improves contrast resolution.

LOGIQ 7 is built on the industry’s most advanced and proven system architecture, TruScan. TruScan technology allows LOGIQ 7 to store raw data early in the imaging chain, which provides powerful post-processing and analysis. With access to raw image data, clinicians are able to compensate for variations in image acquisition to increase their diagnostic confidence, while reducing the number of patient rescans.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that will shape a new age of patient care. GE Healthcare’s expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, disease research, drug discovery and biopharmaceuticals is dedicated to detecting disease earlier and tailoring treatment for individual patients. GE Healthcare offers a broad range of services to improve productivity in healthcare and enable healthcare providers to better diagnose, treat and manage patients with conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular diseases.

GE Healthcare is a $14 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) that is headquartered in the United Kingdom. Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 42,500 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.