Bayer Partnership Delivers Industry-First Dose Management Offering

TARRYTOWN, N.Y., June 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Bayer HealthCare announced the formation of a strategic partnership with Radimetrics, Inc., that will offer U.S. healthcare professionals the industry's first computed tomography (CT) dose management software portfolio to include radiation and contrast dose tracking.  Through the agreement, Bayer will distribute the Radimetrics eXposure™ Radiation Dose Management (RDM) software in addition to Bayer's existing contrast-focused dose management solution.

The addition of radiation tracking to Bayer's existing contrast-focused dose management solution allows healthcare professionals throughout the entire radiology workflow -- the ordering physician, radiologist, technologist, clinical physicist, radiation safety officer and administration -- to track, monitor and manage each patient's radiation and contrast dose.  The expanded portfolio enables reliable, automated radiation and contrast-dose information administration and provides tools that support patient safety management and regulatory reporting requirements while improving quality assurance. 

"Radiation tracking extends the value our Certegra® dose-management platform offers healthcare professionals in managing compliance and improving patient care," said Anthony Cinalli, vice president of the informatics business at Bayer Radiology & Interventional.  "This partnership furthers our vision of accelerating a more-complete radiology information flow, providing a total dosing solution that empowers physicians and administration with instant cumulative dosing and exposure information." 

The eXposure product integrates seamlessly with existing PACS/RIS solutions.  When radiologists add eXposure to their toolbox, they can:

• Track and review doses using a variety of measures including CTDIvol, DLP, SSDE, absorbed organ dose and effective dose based on ICRP 60 and ICRP 103 definitions.
• Incorporate size-adjusted estimates for dose.
• Ensure end-to-end compliance with incorporated protocol management.
• Review alerts according to protocol-specific thresholds that are based on patient age, gender, size and clinical context to minimize unnecessary interruptions.
• Utilize flexible reporting systems with customizable dashboards.

"Combining radiation and contrast dose tracking creates a unique and very powerful informational toolset for hospitals and imaging centers," said Gregory Couch, CEO of Radimetrics. "This is an important step in our continued commitment to helping facilities meet existing and future regulatory requirements, while ensuring that diagnostic imaging tests are done as safely as possible for the patient."

"Regulations governing radiation dose tracking and reporting are either being written or have already been enacted in many jurisdictions," continued Cinalli.  "Our radiation and contrast dose management solutions provide the tools to potentially ease the demands of meeting changing compliance and accreditation requirements."

About Radimetrics
Radimetrics provides radiation dose monitoring and management software to hospitals and imaging centers. Radimetrics' flagship product, eXposure™ is a single-system solution for tracking full body, organ-specific and cumulative radiation exposure across all imaging modalities. It provides crucial patient size-adjusted information to improve decision-making among ordering physicians, radiologists, clinical physicists, safety officers, radiology technologists and others in the radiology workflow, and delivers easy-to-understand patient reports. eXposure has powerful data capture and presentation capabilities to support patient safety, regulatory reporting, quality and utilization management initiatives, accreditation, and referrer and patient satisfaction. www.radimetrics.com.

About Bayer HealthCare
The Bayer Group is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, nutrition and high-tech materials. Bayer HealthCare, a subgroup of Bayer AG with annual sales of EUR 17.2 billion (2011), is one of the world's leading, innovative companies in the healthcare and medical products industry and is based in Leverkusen, Germany. The company combines the global activities of the Animal Health, Consumer Care, Medical Care and Pharmaceuticals divisions. Bayer HealthCare's aim is to discover, develop, manufacture and market products that will improve human and animal health worldwide. Bayer HealthCare has a global workforce of 55,700 employees (Dec 31, 2011) and is represented in more than 100 countries. Find more information at www.bayerhealthcare.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer Group or subgroup management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer's public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.

SOURCE Bayer HealthCare