COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) and the General Electric Company, a Worldwide Partner of the Olympic Games, announced three initiatives aimed at revolutionizing athlete medical care and discovering healthcare benefits for the general public. The first initiative gives U.S. Olympic Committee medical staff and athletes access to state-of-the-art, portable ultrasound technology. The other two initiatives are clinical research studies involving U.S. Olympic athletes and hopefuls: one focused on gaining new insight into techniques for diagnosing and treating heart disease and the other on musculoskeletal (shoulder and knee) injury assessment.

GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company, will provide three LOGIQ Book XP ultrasound systems and technical training to the chief medical officers and their athletic training staffs at the U.S. Olympic Training Centers' clinics in Colorado Springs, Colo.; Lake Placid, N.Y.; and Chula Vista, Calif. The systems and training will enable the USOC to incorporate cutting edge imaging services into its sports medicine programs for U.S. Olympic athletes and hopefuls.

"The ability to assess athlete injuries immediately through graphic, moving ultrasound images, and to learn more about heart capacity through the cardiovascular research will be a huge advantage to U.S. Olympians and hopefuls in their training and competition," said Ed Ryan, U.S. Olympic Committee Director of Sports Medicine. "GE's new technology will allow us to support our athletes better than ever before. There's no question that ultrasound technology will become a standard tool in healthcare for athletes."
Studying Speedskaters' Heart Images to Help Medical Experts Target New Patient Therapies

A clinical study of U.S. Short Track Speedskaters, led by Michael H. Picard and Malissa Wood, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center in Boston, will use GE's new Vivid i - the world's most advanced miniaturized cardiovascular ultrasound system - to examine athletes' hearts pre- and post-competition in an effort to learn more about the function and performance of highly-conditioned hearts. The research team will compare the heart performance of the speedskaters with that of long-distance athletes such as marathoners and rowers, as well as patients with heart disease. This comparison will allow Drs. Picard and Wood to explore new therapies for people with heart disease, as well as those recovering from heart attacks or heart surgeries.

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