Masimo Celebrates 500,000th Pulse Oximeter Shipped

December 21, 2007

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center receives shipment milestone - expanding their depth and breadth of Masimo SET and Masimo Rainbow SET technologies

IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI), the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry and Read-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, today announced that it has just shipped its 500,000th Masimo SET bedside pulse oximeter (excluding hand-held units) to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, a Sutter Health network affiliate in Oakland and Berkeley, California, as part of a five-year technology expansion agreement. Following the conversion to Masimo SET pulse oximetry more than three years ago, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center recently decided to expand the relationship by adding more equipment and entering into a facility-wide site license for Masimo Rainbow SET parameters. Also this year, Sutter Health established Masimo SET as its system-wide standard for pulse oximetry.

Achieving 500,000 shipments highlights an increasing momentum in the clinical adoption of Masimo SET as the "gold standard" in pulse oximetry. Masimo's 200,000th shipment came in 2004, the eighth anniversary of Masimo SET shipments. The 500,000th shipment was achieved less than four years later. The growth comes as leading hospitals and health networks, like Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and Sutter Health, have recognized the superior performance of Masimo SET pulse oximetry and the clinical importance of the new, upgradeable Masimo Rainbow SET technology platform as key building blocks in helping them improve patient care and enhance patient safety initiatives.

Today, many of the world's leading hospitals have converted to Masimo SET technology, including four of the top five as listed on the US News & World Report Honor Roll, and over 50 monitoring brands have integrated Masimo SET technology into their multiparameter monitor solutions.

Nancy E. Brosnan, R.N. CCRN, Critical Care Nurse Manager, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center said, "We made the decision to move to Masimo SET pulse oximetry more than three years ago because, quite simply, the Masimo technology was a better than what was available at the time -- and it has proven to be a very good product. The new capabilities of the Masimo Rainbow SET platform will provide our clinicians with a powerful new set of noninvasive measurements that will enable us to more effectively assess the cardiopulmonary status of our patients on a continuous basis, facilitating more expeditious treatment decisions that are inherently important to enhancing patient safety and improving outcomes. We couldn't afford to ignore this opportunity."

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, a 1,094-bed not-for-profit medical center with over 218,000 outpatient visits and more than 79,000 emergency department visits annually, is a HealthGrades 2007 Distinguished Hospital Award Winner for Clinical Excellence -- ranking among the top 5% in the nation for overall clinical excellence. Sutter Health is one of the nation's leading not-for-profit networks of community-based health care providers, delivering high-quality care in more than 100 Northern California communities. It is also the regional leader in infant deliveries, neonatology, orthopedics, pediatrics and cancer care services. Sutter Health supports more than 26 not-for-profit hospitals, as well as physician organizations; medical research facilities; a region-wide home health, hospice and occupational health network; and long-term care centers. A patient safety pioneer, Sutter Health network is raising the bar on patient safety with a $1.2 billion network investment in a broad range of patient safety initiatives over the next 10 years.

"Masimo SET is the right choice for our system-wide standard for pulse oximetry," said Ian Leverton, M.D., Vice President, Sutter Health Clinical Integration. "Masimo is an industry leader at the forefront of technology with superior clinical performance, and it was available at a significant financial savings."

Before the introduction of Masimo SET in 1995, pulse oximetry was reliable only when patient conditions were ideal -- on motionless patients with strong pulses and good perfusion. However, in the presence of patient motion, a weak pulse or low perfusion, excessive false alarms rendered conventional pulse oximetry virtually useless.

Since then, Masimo SET Read-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry has become the new performance standard for leading hospitals like Alta Bates and now Sutter Health -- making continuous, noninvasive monitoring by pulse oximetry more reliable and clinically-relevant than ever before. As a result, the industry has not only come to depend on continuous noninvasive physiologic monitoring by Masimo SET pulse oximetry, but industry-leading associations -- like The Joint Commission (JCAHO), American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) -- are now establishing industry standards for patient safety on general care floors based on continuous pulse oximetry monitoring in combination with appropriate clinician alerts and notification when physiologic conditions change.

Today, Masimo Rainbow SET, an upgradeable noninvasive technology platform featuring the accuracy and reliability of Masimo SET Read-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, is revolutionizing patient monitoring by significantly expanding the ability to capture, track and monitor additional blood constituents that previously required invasive procedures. The first and only technology platform capable of continuously and noninvasively measuring carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO(TM)),methemoglobin (SpMet(TM)) and, pleth variability index (PVI), in addition to oxyhemoglobin (SpO2), perfusion index (PI) and pulse rate, Masimo Rainbow SET is helping to advance patient safety and improve care.

According to Charles Van Doren, Chief of Clinical Engineering at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, "When we first began to implement the Masimo product into our facilities over three years ago in order to standardize pulse-ox sensors, we found we were going from sensor standardization to improving our patient care. At the same time we were replacing our physiological monitors in our ICU's at the Summit campus we upgraded to Masimo. Working together with the Nurse Managers, Material Management, Clinical Engineering and Masimo Sales, we are now using only Masimo Technology throughout the medical center. The new Rainbow SET technology platform will allow us to grow as new technology becomes available."

Joe E. Kiani, Chairman and CEO of Masimo, stated "It is gratifying to see how Masimo SET and Masimo Rainbow SET technologies are transforming the clinical value and relevance of pulse oximetry by providing clinicians with a solution they can depend on and grow with. Our 500,000th shipment is a milestone that reflects the choices of the health care community -- from clinicians who demand it and patient monitoring providers who work to integrate it, to hospitals and health networks, like Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and Sutter Health, that standardize on it -- Masimo technologies are improving and saving lives. Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and Sutter Health are exceptional medical organizations that set their sights high on patient safety and we are proud to celebrate and share this milestone shipment with them."

About Masimo

Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI) develops innovative monitoring technologies that significantly improve patient care -- helping solve "unsolvable" problems. In 1995, the company debuted Read-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, known as Masimo SET, and with it virtually eliminated false alarms and increased pulse oximetry's ability to detect life-threatening events. Masimo SET is the most accurate and reliable pulse oximetry technology, clinically proven in more than 100 independent and objective studies to provide the most trustworthy SpO2 and pulse rate measurements even under the most difficult clinical conditions, including patient motion and low peripheral perfusion. In 2005, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET, a breakthrough noninvasive blood constituent monitoring platform that can measure many blood constituents that previously required invasive procedures. Rainbow SET continuously and noninvasively measures carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO) and methemoglobin (SpMet), pleth variability index (PVI), in addition to oxyhemoglobin (SpO2), perfusion index (PI) and pulse rate, allowing early detection and treatment of potentially life-threatening conditions. Founded in 1989, Masimo has the mission of "Improving Patient Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications." Additional information about Masimo and its products may be found at http://www.masimo.com.

Masimo, SET, Signal Extraction Technology, Improving Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications, Rainbow, SpCO, SpMet, PVI and Pulse CO-Oximeter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Masimo Corporation.

SOURCE Masimo

CONTACT: Tom McCall of Masimo Corporation, +1-949-297-7075