At the Heart Rhythm 2009 meeting in Boston, GE Healthcare announced it has expanded collaborations with three medical technology companies to enhance their electrophysiology (EP) portfolio and clinically relevant solutions.
In a partnership that began last fall, GE and Hansen Medical of Mountain View, Calif., are working together to improve workflow in the EP lab. A recent agreement expands their collaboration to pursue integration of products for the treatment of arrhythmias, as well as integrate the Sensei™ robotic catheter system with GE’s Innova™ EP X-ray imaging system.
GE is now joining forces with STERIS Corp, which has developed proprietary 3-D room design capabilities, to provide LED lighting, jointly designed EP cockpit and cable management solutions. STERIS and GE hope to use animated virtual reality renderings to optimize the physical layout of a hospital’s EP lab.
Lastly, GE has paired up with Imricor Medical Systems Inc, the Burnsville, MN, based developer of magnetic resonance-guided ablation catheters and associated systems, to design a radiation-free cardiac EP system. The solution would likely combine GE’s MR platform and CardioLab® recording system and Imricor’s Vision® ablation catheters and Bridge® guidance systems.
