News
GE Healthcare and Archimedes, Inc. to Collaborate on Coronary Heart Disease Screening and Prediction Study
WAUKESHA, Wis.- March 29, 2009 — GE Healthcare (NYSE: GE) and Archimedes, Inc., an independent Healthcare Modeling organization, today announced a collaboration to launch an exciting new virtual study to identify an enhanced diagnostic protocol for predicting coronary heart disease (CHD). The virtual study applies a sophisticated computer model which simulates diagnostic methods for screening and predicting heart disease to help researchers better understand earlier treatments for the #1 killer among men and women in the United States.
Dr. Claudio Marelli, M.D., F.A.C.C., Strategic Medical Leader for GE Healthcare said, "The Framingham score fails to predict 25 percent of coronary artery disease. Unconditional treatment might expose patients to unbeneficial treatments. Our collaboration with Archimedes will shed light on the cost-benefit of screening strategies for CHD -- and on the value of imaging -- to increase current risk stratification capacities to adjust the intensity of treatment accordingly."
Despite recent progress in the screening and prevention of CHD, many people continue to be improperly identified through current risk measurement tools such as the Framingham Risk Score. The collaboration will allow for the evaluation of screening strategies to determine the potential of an improved model for calculating the risk of CHD based on new technologies and risk factors. "Leading innovators like GE Healthcare are embracing healthcare modeling," said Barbara Peskin, Principal Investigator for Archimedes. "We are delighted to partner with GE Healthcare in its commitment to investigating preventive health through the use of the Archimedes Model."
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 46,000 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.
About Archimedes:
Archimedes Inc. is an independent Healthcare Modeling organization. Its proprietary technology - the Archimedes Model - is a mathematical model of human physiology, diseases, interventions and healthcare systems. The Archimedes Model is designed to help people understand the implications of their decisions and can be applied to a range of real world scenarios.
The Archimedes Model is repeatedly tested and validated and can be relied upon to answer complex, real world questions for health plans, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and other organizations. Archimedes, a Kaiser Permanente Innovation, is based in San Francisco, California. For more information on the company, visit our website at www.archimedesmodel.com.
Contacts:
Patrick van der Valk for Archimedes, Inc. ,
(415) 490-0414; patrick.vandervalk@archimedesmodel.com
Corey Miller for GE Healthcare
(415) 469-5499 (mobile).