GE Healthcare Receives FDA clearance for the Mini Telemetry System, Delivering Freedom and Expanded Mobility to Laboring Mothers-to-Be
Laurel, MARYLAND, August 24, 2011 ? GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) today announced that its Mini Telemetry System has received 510(k) clearance in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The GE Mini Telemetry System addresses the growing demand for mobility during labor, and is fully compatible with existing GE’s Corometrics monitors and transducers, as it uses the same transducers whether the patient is in bed or mobile.
The GE system is designed to enable a more ambulatory experience for the mother and increase caregiver efficiency, while ensuring continuous monitoring. A number of trends have converged to make ambulatory monitoring of mother and baby increasingly attractive, including the emergence of alternative labor-and-delivery tools and environments such as birthing balls and laboring in water.
“With our Mini Telemetry System, GE aims to provide the freedom for mothers-to-be to enhance their birthing experience through ambulation and hydrotherapy during labor,” said Carrie Eglinton Manner, General Manager for GE Healthcare’s Maternal Infant Care business. “This System is engineered to deliver uncompromising, interruption-free maternal and fetal monitoring in a simple, compact and complete solution.”
The Mini system provides maximum mobility for a minimal investment in addition to the benefits for the mother-to-be and the care provider, including compatibility with existing Corometrics monitors allowing utilization of the same transducers, regardless of the patients’ location within the line of sight2 antenna range of 500 meters/1640 feet. Other features include:
- Audio monitoring of fetal heart rate via either transmitter speaker or headphones
- Compact size and weight (just a pound) for the ability to move freely while maintaining constant access to monitoring;
- A innovative cable-management slot for enhanced patient care;
- One-touch marking of the baby’s movements;
- The ability to transport mothers-to-be to other in hospital departments without needing to replace transducers within the line of sight antenna range of 500 meters/1640 feet;
- Three-port design allowing for multiple monitoring modes: fetal heart rate, uterine activity and ECG monitoring;
- Extended battery life of up to 12 hours can accommodate the full duration of most labors. The device can also be recharged during use;
- Waterproof 9-crystal transducers provide reliability in fetal monitoring, even while laboring in water;
- Industry leading line-of-sight antenna range.
The GE Mini Telemetry System is now commercially available in major markets throughout the world.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.
Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are 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.
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NOTES TO EDITORS
* GE, GE Monogram and Corometrics are trademarks of General Electric Company
1 GE’s Mini Telemetry System is fully compatible with the with Corometrics 170, 250 series and 120, which are currently available
2 500 meters /1640 feet line of sight is an engineering specification, results in a clinical setting will vary