Chicago, Illinois – GE Healthcare launched its second annual Women’s Health and Wellness Tour (WHWT) this October, which will continue to tour the nation until June 2005. In an effort to educate women about the importance of the early detection and prevention of various women’s health concerns including breast, bone and heart health, the tour offers free medical screenings, educational information and interactive discussions with leading health experts.

Complimentary health screenings include full-field digital mammography education or screenings in the Breast Suite, bone densitometry screenings in the Bone Suite and blood pressure and ECG readings in the Heart Suite. These focus on the detection and prevention of breast cancer, osteoporosis and heart disease. The state-of-the-art clinical technology used for the screenings is contained within a 53-foot unit called the Health Vehicle, and staffed by certified professionals from a local healthcare provider partnering with GE Healthcare.

“Access to the latest and most advanced diagnostic technology can make all the difference in terms of early detection, more accurate diagnosis and less aggressive treatment plans for many diseases and conditions,” said Joe Hogan, President and CEO of GE Healthcare Technologies. “The tour provides us with a unique opportunity to give something back and really engage women in important and informative discussions that can positively impact their health today and in the future. “

Organized and made possible by GE Healthcare, the second annual Women’s Health and Wellness Tour will make stops in Dallas, TX, Los Angeles, CA and Chicago, IL, among others. GE Healthcare expects to positively impact thousands of women across a variety of socio-economic and geographical areas.

There are many reasons women’s healthcare is a critical focus-point for outreach.

“Male symptoms are often considered the ‘baseline’ for many diseases, so when a woman experiences something that might warrant medical consultation or care, it’s quite easy for them to misinterpret or dismiss it,” said Dr. James Rippe, author of Heart Disease for Dummies and Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at Tufts University School of Medicine. “This means that women are elevating their risk of catching diseases at a later, more dangerous and more difficult to treat stage.”

According to the Society for Women’s Health Research,* women make three-fourths of the healthcare decisions in American households and spend almost two of every three healthcare dollars. While 59 percent of physician visits are made by women, women are less likely to seek preventative screenings and medical care for the same diseases that affect others in their families.

A Wellness Vehicle compliments the Health Vehicle by providing a variety of activities for “body, mind and spirit” wellness. Depending on the event, exhibits on the Wellness Vehicle may include yoga, healthy-cooking demonstrations, massage therapies and interactive fitness classes—all of which encourage individuals to understand the important role they have in maintaining their health.

Diagnostics Designed

Technology featured on the tour includes:

• The GE Senographe® 2000 D full-field digital mammography system, the world’s first all-digital mammography system, which allows doctors to obtain better visibility of the breast in less than half the time of traditional exams

• The GE MAC 5000® Resting ECG Analysis System, the first electrocardiograph technology featuring gender-specific software to help physicians view subtle indications of acute myocardial infarction, providing a 14% improvement (translating to about 600 women a day) over non-gender specific analysis

• The GE Lunar Achilles® Express, a bone ultrasonometer that provides high-quality clinical results and comes with the broadest indications for use among bone ultrasonometry devices

On the web

For additional information on the GE Women’s Health and Wellness Tour, please visit our website at

• www.gewomenstour.com

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). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 42,500 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.

*Citation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. Healthy Women: State Trends in Health and Mortality.

• http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/healthywomen.htm