Philips and STERIS in alliance to provide hybrid surgical rooms for minimally invasive procedures

8 October 2008

Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG; AEX: PHI) and STERIS Corporation (NYSE: STE) are collaborating to provide hybrid operating rooms for open and minimally invasive cardiovascular surgical procedures.

The alliance will combine Philips' cardiovascular X-ray systems and STERIS HD 360° Suites technologies and design services to create a flexible environment where clinicians can treat patients requiring minimally invasive procedures, or those needing open surgery, within a single operating suite. The relationship will also provide hospitals with opportunities for surgical innovation and improved infection prevention programs.

The new solutions provided by the Philips-STERIS collaboration will deliver hybrid operating rooms that optimize workflow and streamline the room planning and installation process. As a result, clinical staff will benefit from a more tailored and intuitive environment that has the potential to increase the efficiency of procedures for healthcare professionals.

Hospitals are increasingly moving away from inpatient procedures to more same-day and minimally invasive surgery. During the past 20 years there has been a huge growth in outpatient surgery, with more than half of patients today leaving the hospital on the same day as their operation. There has also been a major rise in the use of catheter-based treatments instead of open vascular work for all cardiac procedures. This shift means hospitals today need to reconfigure their operating rooms so they can adapt easily to different surgical procedures and accommodate a wide range of current and future surgical technologies.

Bert van Meurs, senior vice president of Cardiovascular X-ray at Philips Healthcare, said “Our partnership with STERIS demonstrates how we are providing clinicians with operating facilities that combine versatility, ease of use and optimal layout. This means clinicians can spend less time worrying about the technology and more time focusing on the patient.”

“We share the same desire as our Philips colleagues to optimize the surgical environment for clinical professionals and their patients,” Bill O’Riordan, STERIS’s vice president and general manager for Surgical and Critical Care Technologies commented. “Our alliance with Philips will help healthcare providers meet growing procedural demands and embrace future surgical innovation with ease. These combined Philips-STERIS solutions may also help to increase staff productivity, maximize daily patient procedure rates and meet rigorous sterility assurance standards and regulations worldwide.”

Overall, the Philips-STERIS hybrid room solutions are designed to help: enhance patient flow and enable more cases per day; reduce the risk for complications; reduce overall costs in the healthcare community.

For new facilities and renovation projects, Philips will provide interventional X-ray equipment and specialized imaging tables and STERIS will supply specifically designed HD 360° Suites for hybrid surgical rooms featuring: LED surgical lighting and visualization systems, integrated OR technology, and pendant (equipment management) systems. This will enable surgical and diagnostic teams to carry out a vast range of image-guided interventional radiology procedures including cardiovascular, vascular, cardiac surgery, neurosurgery and orthopedics.

In addition to the immediate benefits of the relationship, the Philips-STERIS agreement will allow researchers at both companies to jointly develop advanced surgical and imaging patient care solutions. As capabilities advance, they can enable surgeons to conceive new advanced procedures that benefit patients in many ways.

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