GE Healthcare Equipment Exceeds 4,000 Medical Records and 1,000 Imaging Exams at Rio 2016 Olympic Games

RIO DE JANEIRO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

As one of the proud partners of Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, GE has supplied the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with innovative health data management software to create Electronic Medical Records (EMR) for all athletes and patients who visit the Polyclinic in the Olympic Village. GE has been supporting team doctors and more than 10,500 athletes competing at the Games. This year's use of the EMR system has already tracked over 4,000 medical records, including 1,085 diagnostic imaging exams that were performed at the Polyclinic in the Athletes Village as well as at the emergency centers in the competition arenas. Six hundred and ten MRI, 345 X-ray and 130 ultrasound examinations were performed since July 22, when the operations at the Polyclinic started.

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The EMR allows doctors to track and analyze in real-time thousands of data points – from imaging scans to medications, dental examinations and allergies of each of the athletes treated at the Polyclinic. The digital solution provides reliable information and helps ensure that clinicians know the medical history of the athlete so they can plan for the best possible outcome. More than 1,000 physicians are involved in caring for the U.S. Olympic team alone.

This year marks the first time team doctors from around the world are able to manage health records through a single system, which enables the unification and analysis of all athletes' information in the same cloud platform. The system is offered entirely in English as well as Portuguese, in compliance with the Brazilian health laws.

"The gold medal of medical services is a comprehensive, integrated health solution for lesion prevention," said Dr. Richard Budgett, medical and scientific director for the International Olympic Committee. "Without an adequate medical record, it is difficult to predict which lesions will be more common in given sports in the future."

A version of Centricity Practice Solution (CPS), the EMR being used at the Rio 2016 Games, was developed specifically for the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). The USOC used CPS during the London 2012 and Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, with outstanding and critical results.

"In the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, we had an athlete with a medulla lesion caused by his fall in the snow, which compromised his breathing capacity," said Dr. Bill Moreau, managing director of the sports medicine division for the USOC. "The athlete was taken to Frankfurt, Germany for additional care, but when he arrived, he was not able to speak. When I accessed his health record, I could verify that he had allergies, which would influence his treatment, and I could see the number of anticoagulants he had ingested," Moreau said. "It is hard to imagine that just one or two years ago, we would not have been able to access this information."

Among the advantages of the EMR is the information quality and near real-time analysis and response, increasing the chance of avoiding unnecessary procedures. According to the USOC, the U.S. Women's Olympic wrestling team saw a 60 percent reduction in surgeries (primarily a result of shoulder lesions), after the adoption of the EMR. This reduction can be at least partially attributed to the ability of the EMR to translate data into insights and identify trends in causation that can inform changes in training and care.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE Healthcare GE works on things that matter - great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients. http://www.gehealthcare.com

About GE

GE GE is the world's leading Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.ge.com

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