David Boccia (L) of GE Healthcare presents the 2005 AAMI/GE BMET Award to Glen Wolfe.

• AAMI Foundation Laufman-Greatbatch Prize—honors an individual or group that has made a unique and significant contribution to the advancement of medical instrumentation.
• AAMI Clinical/Biomedical Engineering Achievement Award—recognizes individual excellence and achievement in the fields of clinical engineering and biomedical engineering.
• AAMI Becton Dickinson Career Achievement Award—identifies and encourages outstanding achievement(s) by a promising health care professional in the development or improvement of medical devices, instruments, or systems that will help people live healthy lives.
• AAMI Foundation/TISCOR (Herb Gardner Foundation) Award—recognizes a midcareer biomedical professional who seeks to advance his or her career by pursuing an undergraduate or advanced degree, or by completing training at an appropriate technical school.
• AAMI/GE Medical Systems BMET of the Year Award—given to a biomedical equipment technician to recognize excellence in the field of biomedical equipment technology.
• AAMI Foundation/ACCE Robert L Morris Humanitarian Award—honors individuals who have worked to improve global health conditions through the application of health technology.
• AAMI Foundation/ Institute for Technology and Healthcare Award—awarded to a clinical engineer in recognition of an innovative solution that has been developed to address a clinical patient-care problem and that demonstrates clinical application and efficacy.
Winners will receive a monetary award, a plaque, and up to $500 in travel expenses to accept the award during the AAMI Annual Conference and Exposition, June 24–26, 2006, in Washington, DC. For more information and to download a nomination form, visit www.aami.org/awards/index.html or contact Lori Freeman by email at lfreeman@aami.org.

“[Customers] now have a chance to see one of our premier patient-positioning products in action on our Web site,” said Ken Freeman, oncology product line manager for Fluke. “The new Halcyon Cantilever Board’s unique design allows for a full 360-degree treatment with minimal attenuation. The fully adjustable carbon-fiber Halcyon talon shoulder-depression system is uniquely designed to increase setup repeatability and reduce patient motion without requiring a large sheet of thermoplastic covering the shoulders.”

The mobile, compact unit has a fully Web-based setup that allows remote access to the OR Gateway from multiple imaging devices.

As the ultimate in operating room (OR) picture archiving and communication system (PACS) solutions, it consists of a small, lightweight, diskless OR PACS workstation on a steel, ergonomically designed cart that allows for easy retrieval and display of images from the OR Gateway, or from any PACS system. The mobile cart has a pneumatic arm that allows the user to easily position displays to the most convenient height during a patient procedure. The diskless workstation uses state-of-the-art gigabite networking to eliminate the unreliability of mounting a disk-based PC on the device, thereby making it easy and reliable to move from OR to OR between cases without the risk of corrupting the server with multiple reboots.

The workstation features a DICOM DVR, adding the ability to capture analog streaming video from DICOM or non-DICOM devices and immediately convert them to DICOM at rates exceeding 30 frames per second at 1k x 1k resolutions. It can accommodate typical color or grayscale streaming video from high-resolution fluoroscopy, C-Arm, or cardiac ultrasound units, and can capture and convert still images as well. The diskless capture interface communicates with the OR Gateway over standard gigabit Ethernet.

A fully Web-based setup allows remote access to the OR Gateway from multiple imaging devices that may be located in multiple OR suites. The completely mobile unit is equipped with a 12-hour battery and can use wireless 802.11 networking, with complete encryption.

The server adds MPPS, SC, and IAN, MWL, and QR classes to devices that may only have support for modality worklist and DICOM store and print.

Wireless technology combined with critical wireless applications give health care facilities improved communication.

At the core of the GE Enterprise Access solution, the MobileAccess Universal Wireless Network will provide seamless wireless coverage throughout health care facilities while simultaneously delivering a broad range of wireless technologies—including cellular, wireless fidelity, paging, and public-safety radio—over a common infrastructure. The two companies will continue to collaborate on enhancements to the GE Enterprise Access solution to deliver next-generation wireless offerings for hospitals, including support for the Wireless Medical Telemetry Service.

With this new solution, hospitals will no longer need to install parallel, stand-alone infrastructures to support their clinical workflows. Instead, hospitals can deploy a highly adaptive wireless solution that enables medical teams to deliver increased clinical and IT productivity through improved communication across the entire campus.

“Communication and continuous coverage is the lifeblood of any hospital,” explained David Ataide, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare Monitoring Solutions. “By combining the MobileAccess Universal Wireless Network with GE's wireless-enabled solutions, like the wireless Dash® portable monitor, and other mission-critical wireless applications, hospitals can feel confident that their investment in wireless technology ensures improved communication.”

The GE Enterprise Access solution is expected to adapt to changing conditions and accommodate new wireless applications. The MobileAccess Wire-it-Once™ technology enables hospitals to cost-efficiently add wireless applications and services without disturbing hospital spaces or disrupting existing services. The solution provides hospitals with a platform that permits future services, reduces maintenance and upgrade costs, and ensures hospital-quality reliability and uptime.