GE Collaborates With Leading Healthcare Systems to Reduce CT Radiation Dose

July 9, 2012 — GE Healthcare unveiled in June the GE Blueprint for low dose, a comprehensive program that helps healthcare providers integrate CT (computed tomography) technologies, education and process improvements, and data analysis to reduce patient radiation dose from CT by up to 50 percent. GE Healthcare is committing to work with health systems and physicians to develop system-specific solutions – comprehensive “blueprints” that can help providers achieve low-dose, high-definition diagnostic capabilities. The program is designed to help health systems nationwide positively impact patient safety.

GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt and North Shore-LIJ Health System President and CEO Michael Dowling unveiled the GE Blueprint for low dose at North Shore-LIJ’s Center for Advanced Medicine. Following the model set by North Shore-LIJ, GE plans to engage with leading health systems across the United States – representing 3,500 hospitals with 70 percent of all hospital admissions nationally – to share the GE Blueprint for low dose.

Traditionally in CT, high image quality often requires greater patient exposure to diagnostic radiation. Lower dose levels for the patient usually meant lower image clarity. With GE’s Veo technology, for instance, physicians have achieved clear chest CT images with less than 1 mSv of dose – some with radiation dose levels comparable to chest X-rays. Traditional chest CT scans can expose patients to anywhere from 5 to 10 mSv of radiation dose, and natural background radiation exposes the average American to around 3 mSv per year.

As part of their blueprint, North Shore-LIJ is incorporating 16 new advanced GE CT systems and low dose technologies, including:

• DoseWatch, a management tool that helps providers measure, track and optimize patient dose over time;
• Veo, a CT image reconstruction technology that helps physicians achieve some CT scans at under 1 mSv with high clarity; and
• ASiR low dose image reconstruction technology, available across the GE Healthcare CT portfolio and used on over 1,200 systems for more than 12 million patient exams to date.

For more information: www.gehealther.com/geblueprint