Toshiba Awarded Contract to Provide Multislice CT Systems to Lake Erie Regional Cooperative.

TUSTIN, Calif. -- Leveraging its leadership in the CT market, Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc. (TAMS), today announced the signing of a preferred provider agreement with Lake Erie Regional Cooperative (LERC) to supply its multislice CT technology to LERC's 25 hospitals and health care organizations across northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. Presently, LERC has acquired two Aquilion(TM) systems - the world's most advanced computed tomography (CT) scanner.

"We are pleased with Lake Erie Regional Cooperative's selection of Toshiba as their preferred provider for multislice CT technology," said Doug Ryan, director, CT Business Unit, Toshiba America Medical Systems. "With this agreement, Toshiba further solidifies its leadership in multislice CT technology and strengthens its ongoing commitment to the U.S. imaging market."

"According to the vendor selection criteria established by the LERC Radiology Directors Council, Toshiba was rated the highest overall for the CT diagnostic imaging modality," said Russ Ede, C.P.M., contract analyst, Lake Erie Regional Cooperative. "The vendor selection criteria included a matrix of factors including customer satisfaction, range of technology and cost as leading indicators. Based on these factors, we chose Toshiba as our preferred provider for CT."

Based in Toledo, Ohio, LERC was formed in 1996 by the members of the Lake Erie Health Alliance (LEHA), a network of hospitals working cooperatively to improve the delivery of health care within the region. The collaboration of the LEHA members led them to look at reducing costs by combining their respective purchasing volume for supplies, equipment and services.

"Changing technology mandates that our member facilities stay current with the latest technology. The LERC agreement with Toshiba for CT allows our members access to the latest technology," said Ede.

The World's Most Advanced CT System

Toshiba's Aquilion product line is designed to deliver a full array of CT imaging capabilities. At the heart of the product line is its superior multidetector design, the most sophisticated detector available for high-speed, high-resolution diagnostic imaging.

The Aquilion 16 detector allows up to seven varying image slice thicknesses, from 0.5 mm to 8 mm, generating up to 40 slices per second, and permits 16 0.5 mm images to be acquired per 400-millisecond gantry rotation for volumetric data acquisition.

The Aquilion 32 features an advanced 64-row detector capable of producing 32 simultaneous 0.5 mm or 1 mm slices with each gantry revolution for a total Z-axis coverage of 32 mm. The speed of the Aquilion 32 also enables data acquisition with fewer heartbeats, shorter breath-hold times and routine contrast usage of only 80-100 cc for coronaries.

The use of thin slices for scanning improves the accuracy of measurement and makes the Aquilion scanners more useful for coronary CTA, plaque identification and cardiac function analysis.

For more information about the Aquilion 16 and the Aquilion 32, TAMS and its wide range of medical imaging products, please visit www.medical.toshiba.com.

About Lake Erie Regional Cooperative

LERC is a purchasing cooperative made up of more than 25 hospitals and health care organizations across northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. The flagship health system for LERC is ProMedica Health System, a $1.2 billion healthcare integrated delivery network based in Toledo. ProMedica (www.promedica.org) is the management company for LERC and responsible for LERC's daily operations including the development and marketing of LERC's supply contracts.

LERC has an independent portfolio of over 80 high-volume supply contracts with an annual contract volume in excess of $150 million. LERC utilizes the concept of pre-commitment to negotiate extremely competitive contracts on behalf of its members. Through pre-commitment and overall member contract compliance requirements, LERC has been able to save its members more than $9 million and deliver more than $5 million in cash dividends to its members in its first six years of operation.

About Toshiba

With headquarters in Tustin, Toshiba America Medical Systems markets, sells, distributes and services diagnostic imaging systems, and coordinates clinical diagnostic imaging research for all modalities in the United States. Toshiba Medical Systems Corp., an independent group company of Toshiba Corp., is a global leading provider of diagnostic medical imaging systems and comprehensive medical solutions, such as CT, X-ray, Ultrasound, Nuclear Medicine, MRI and information systems. Toshiba Corp. is a leader in information and communications systems, electronic components, consumer products, and power systems. Toshiba has 166,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of more than $47 billion.