Vienna, Austria - At the European Society of Cardiology's (ESC) annual congress, Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG; AEX: PHI) demonstrated its HeartStart MRx Monitor/Defibrillator, which enables paramedics to transmit patient data from the ambulance to the hospital's emergency department. Upon reception of the data at the hospital, clinicians can use the ECG data to begin assessing what treatment the incoming patient will need. By allowing a hospital to begin organizing its resources before the patient arrives, the MRx can help reduce the time to treatment.

"As soon as a heart attack occurs, the heart muscle starts to die. That's why reducing the time between heart attack and treatment has been proven to have a big impact on a patient's long-term recovery" De Luca G, Suryapranata H, Ottervanger JP, Antman EM., "Time delay to treatment and mortality in primary angioplasty for acute myocardial infarction: every minute of delay counts". Circulation, 2004 Mar 16; 109(10):1223-5.

"These results suggest that every minute of delay in primary angioplasty for STEMI affects 1-year mortality, even after adjustment for baseline characteristics. Therefore, all efforts should be made to shorten the total ischemic time, not only for thrombolytic therapy but also for primary angioplasty," commented Joris van den Hurk, vice president of cardiology care cycles for Philips Medical Systems. "As a result, the American College of Cardiology, in partnership with the American Heart Association and other organizations around the world, has launched the 'Door to Balloon' campaign. It aims to reduce the amount of time from the arrival of the patient at the hospital to angioplasty to 90 minutes or less."
In addition to transmitting ECG data to the hospital prior to the patients' arrival, the HeartStart MRx integrates seamlessly with the hospital's ECG management system TraceMasterVue, enabling critical patient information to be seen where it's needed - even in the Catheterization (Cath) Lab.

"With over 17 million people around the world dying from cardiovascular diseases each year, such diseases are the world's number one cause of death," commented Kevin Haydon, EVP and CEO Global Sales & Service International, Philips Medical Systems. "That's why we're working together with cardiologists to develop technologies that integrate into each part of the cardiac care cycle - from emergency care to diagnosis, treatment and long-term care."

At ESC 2007, Philips demonstrated several other examples of how it optimizes timely delivery of diagnosis and treatment in the care cycle.

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