Siemens: Integrated Work Environment Key to Managing Rising Tide of Interventional Cardiology Patients.

WASHINGTON -- With interventional cardiology procedures expected to grow beyond 7 million annually in the United States, specialists need to combine clearer images from advances in diagnosing heart disease with improved recordkeeping to provide more efficient procedures, experts from Siemens Medical Solutions said today at the 18th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) Scientific Session.

"The cardiac patient population is growing rapidly, which actually presents an opportunity for both the clinical and technological communities to work proactively to bring together the latest advances in care," said Bappa Choudhury, Vice President, Global Solutions, Siemens Medical Solutions. "The graying of America, combined with other environmental risk factors, including smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise means that cardiologists will see steadily increasing patient volume in the years to come. They must be better prepared to meet this opportunity."

According to Choudhury, workflow improvement presents the greatest prospect for improving care, outcomes and efficiency, but only if the environment is truly integrated. Choudhury explained that by using diagnostic and data management systems that are connected and work on shared data platforms, interventional cardiologists (ICs) and cath labs can eliminate unnecessary steps in the interventional cardiology procedure, and reduce staff time on non-clinical functions.

"Siemens Cardiology Solutions can synchronize the viewing, imaging, reporting, treatment planning and archiving components of the process to streamline the cardiology practice, ultimately resulting in better patient care and reduced costs," said Choudhury.

CREATING SOLUTIONS FOR INTERVENTIONAL CARDIOLOGY

As the patient population grows, Siemens continues to develop new technologies to improve interventional cardiology procedures and the workflow in the cath lab, many of which will be on display at TCT.

Siemens AXIOM Artis dFC, a floor-mounted interventional imaging solution with flat detector technology, is an all-digital single-plane C-arm cardiology system, which gives exceptional cardiac imaging performance and an expansive range of diagnostic and interventional applications - from cardiac angiography to ECG-triggered fluoroscopy. The dFC large plate 30 x 40 is one of Siemens combo solutions that can be utilized in the cardiac and angio environments. Siemens has over 100 combo solutions installed.

Along with Siemens' angiography systems, Interventional Cardiac 3D (IC3D) creates three-dimensional images of the coronary vessels in the heart and enables precise bifurcation measurement, leading to increased support in diagnosis and shorter examination times. With IC3D the clinician can rotate the model freely on screen and view the vessel from various angles, ultimately providing greater accuracy and precision in vessel assessment, as well as stent length selection and balloon size and inflation.

The ACUSON AcuNav[TM] ultrasound catheter family enables improved access during closure of atrial septal defects on smaller patients and left heart applications for both interventional cardiology and electrophysiology. It provides visualization of vascular and cardiac anatomy and physiology, measurement of blood flow and visualization of other devices throughout the entire heart.

In addition, with the ACUON fourSight[TM] TEE view and the V5m transducer, transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) enables easy access to 3D/4D images inside the operating room for review, manipulation and dynamic display of gated 3D datasets. TEE ultrasound can provide physicians a more detailed, anatomical display of the heart and clinical disease processes with the highest image quality, which is especially important for valve repair procedures.

However, diagnostic equipment is only one part of the equation, as technologies continue to develop to integrate the various elements of the interventional cardiology procedure, and improve workflow for ICs.

"If you focus only on the imaging element, you only get half the picture," said Choudhury. "The key to truly maximizing workflow in the lab is to integrate the diagnostic tools with the data management tools."

Demonstrating the importance of integration between diagnostic and data management tools, Siemens will also be highlighting its information technology solutions for IC at TCT. With Siemens syngo([R]) Suite, image acquisition, Radiology Information System (RIS), Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), and post-processing come together with the clinical and administrative cycles addressed by Soarian([R]), Siemens new generation health information solution (HIS).

One component of the syngo Suite, syngo[R] Dynamics, featured at TCT, is a multimodality, dynamic image review and archiving system using evidence-based reporting to improve the efficiency of clinical procedures. syngo Dynamics seamlessly integrates patient digital imaging information and offers immediate access to cardiology and ultrasound imaging studies and reports at diagnostic workstations and from anywhere in the hospital.

Additionally, Soarian Cardiovascular Enterprise, an industry leading web-based, scalable solution that supports the cardiovascular continuum from diagnosis, to treatment, and follow-up care will be highlighted at TCT. The system integrates data collection and image acquisition with powerful procedure reporting and diagnostic tools, nursing documentation, ordering, and outcomes analysis from a single, longitudinal repository that becomes a true cardiovascular electronic patient record.

Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) with headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers to the healthcare industry in the world. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. Employing approximately 33,000 people worldwide and operating in more than 120 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 7.6 billion EUR, orders of 8.6 billion EUR and group profit of 976 million EUR for fiscal 2005. More information can be obtained by visiting www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.