News Details

HOUSTON, Jan 26, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital (SLEH) and Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI), the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry(TM) and Measure-Through Motion and Low-Perfusion pulse oximetry, jointly announced today that the Houston-based hospital is the first in Texas to use the Masimo Patient SafetyNet(TM) system to continuously monitor the physiological status of post-surgical patients -- ensuring early detection of patient deterioration and enabling potentially life-saving interventions.

With the Patient SafetyNet system, St. Luke's clinicians receive a pager notification when a patient's condition is worsening, allowing them to intervene before the condition becomes critical and requires more acute levels of care. This is particularly important for post-surgical patients who are at increased risk of serious injury or death resulting from the respiratorydepression effects of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) and opioids used for sedation and pain management.

According to John Sabo, administrative director of Respiratory Therapy at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Masimo Patient SafetyNet is helping St. Luke's to realize its vision of improving both patient safety and hospital efficiencies through early detection and intervention of acute respiratory changes in its post-surgical patients. "We have already witnessed the benefits of Patient SafetyNet in our orthopedic and pulmonary units. Patient SafetyNet will assist in the improvement of utilization of ICU resources, patient outcomes, and a reduction in overall costs."

The Patient SafetyNet system keeps post-surgical patients safer by continuously, noninvasively, and remotely monitoring multiple physiological parameters, including arterial oxygen saturation and pulse rate, and automatically alerting clinicians to changes that signal patient distress or deterioration. In a recently published landmark study by Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the Patient SafetyNet system was shown to help reduce rescue events and activations 65% and ICU transfers 48%.(1)

"Once my alarm limits are set, I know I can rely on Patient SafetyNet to watch over my patients, continuously assessing their health status 24/7," stated Samantha Biba, BSN, RN-BC, Acute Pulmonary Unit, Quality Supervisor. "At the first sign of trouble, the system alerts me via pager so I can attend to the patient and assess his or her condition. Not only has the system been instrumental in helping us to identify patient deterioration much earlier to prevent more serious adverse events, but its effect on patient care and safety has been invaluable."

Combining the gold standard performance of Masimo SET(R) pulse oximetry with respiration rate monitoring at the point-of-care and wireless clinician notification via pager, Patient SafetyNet provides an unmatched level of safety for up to 80 patients on four floors. The system uses open IEEE industry standards for connectivity, which allows for more efficient sharing of data across a hospital's IT platforms, along with the option of full integration into a hospital's existing IT infrastructure -- providing a lower overall cost of ownership and improved financial benefits.

To further advance patient safety initiatives, St. Luke's will also implement Masimo Rainbow SET Pulse CO-Oximetry technology -- making noninvasive and continuous hemoglobin (SpHb(TM)), oxygen content (SpOC(TM)), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO(R)), methemoglobin (SpMet(R)), and PVI(R)an integral component of their routine patient monitoring protocols in their emergency, surgery, and recovery care areas.

(1) Taenzer, Andreas H.; Pyke, Joshua B.; McGrath, Susan P.; Blike, George T. "Impact of Pulse Oximetry Surveillance on Rescue Events and Intensive Care Unit Transfers: A Before-and-After Concurrence Study." Anesthesiology, February 2010, Vol. 112, Issue 2.

Available online at: http://journals.lww.com/anesthesiology/Abstract/publishahead/Impact_of_Pulse_Oximetry_Surveillance_on_Rescue.99692.aspx

About St. Luke's Episcopal Health System

St. Luke's Episcopal Health System (www.stlukestexas.com) includes St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, founded in 1954 by the Episcopal Diocese of Texas; St. Luke's The Woodlands Hospital; St. Luke's Sugar Land Hospital; St. Luke's Lakeside Hospital; St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities, a charity devoted to assessing and enhancing community health, especially among the underserved. St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital is home to the Texas Heart^(R) Institute, which was founded in 1962 by Denton A. Cooley, MD, and is consistently ranked among the top 10 cardiology and heart surgery centers in the country by U.S.News & World Report. Affiliated with several nursing schools and three medical schools, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital was the first hospital in Texas named a Magnet hospital for nursing excellence, and has been honored four times with the Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence(TM) by HealthGrades, a leading independent company that measures healthcare quality in hospitals. The Health System has been recognized by FORTUNE as among the "100 Best Companies to Work For" and by the Houston Business Journal as a top employer in Houston. St. Luke's Episcopal Health System also was honored as one of Modern Healthcare magazine's "100 Best Places to Work."

About Masimo

Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) develops innovative monitoring technologies that significantly improve patient care -- helping solve "unsolvable" problems. In 1995, the company debuted Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, known as Masimo SET(R), which virtually eliminated false alarms and increased pulse oximetry's ability to detect life-threatening events. More than 100 independent and objective studies demonstrate Masimo SET provides the most reliable SpO2 and pulse rate measurements even under the most challenging clinical conditions, including patient motion and low peripheral perfusion. In 2005, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET(R) Pulse CO-Oximetry(TM), allowing noninvasive and continuous monitoring of blood constituents that previously required invasive procedures, including total hemoglobin (SpHb(TM)), oxygen content (SpOC(TM)), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO(R)), methemoglobin (SpMet(R)), and PVI(R), in addition to SpO2, pulse rate, and perfusion index (PI). In 2009, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET(R) Acoustic Monitoring(TM), the first-ever noninvasive and continuous monitoring of acoustic respiration rate (RRa). Masimo's Rainbow platform offers a breakthrough in patient safety by helping clinicians detect life-threatening conditions and helping guide treatment options. 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 www.masimo.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements as defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in connection with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations about future events affecting us and are subject to risks and uncertainties, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control and could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in our forward-looking statements as a result of various risk factors, including, but not limited to: risks related to our belief that Masimo Patient SafetyNet will provide an effective early warning system of a patient's deteriorating physiological condition to enable timely rescue and increase patient safety, risks related to our belief that Masimo SET and Masimo Rainbow SET measurements and alarms will provide sufficient sensitivity and specificity to detect physiological abnormalities and potentially life-threatening conditions in real-time for all patients, risks related to our assumptions regarding the repeatability of clinical results, as well as other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our most recent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which may be obtained for free at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we do not know whether our expectations will prove correct. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today's date. We do not undertake any obligation to update, amend or clarify these forward-looking statements or the "Risk Factors" contained in our most recent reports filed with the SEC, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under the applicable securities laws.

Media Contacts:
Dana Banks
Masimo Corporation
(949) 297-7348
[email protected]

Jessica Michan
St. Luke's Episcopal Health System
(832) 355-3791
[email protected]

Masimo, SET, Signal Extraction Technology, Improving Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications, Rainbow, SpHb, SpOC, SpCO, SpMet, PVI, RRa, Radical-7, Rad-87, Rad-57, Rad-9, Rad-8, Rad-5, Pulse CO-Oximetry and Pulse CO-Oximeter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Masimo Corporation.

SOURCE Masimo Corporation