John Hunter Children's Hospital Installs Australia's First Masimo Patient SafetyNet(TM) System

IRVINE, Calif., April 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI), the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry™ and Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry announced today the installation of Australia's first Masimo Patient SafetyNet System at John Hunter Children's Hospital in New South Wales.  The new, state-of-the-art remote monitoring and wireless clinician notification system is currently being used to noninvasively and continuously monitor the physiological status of selected pediatric patients in the medical ward—ensuring early detection of deterioration or distress and enabling potentially life-saving interventions.

(Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100401/LA80476)

Earlier this week, guests attending the hospital's unveiling saw live demonstrations of the Masimo Patient SafetyNet system in action, including: how a patient is entered into the system and continuously, remotely monitored using Masimo SET® pulse oximeters via a noninvasive finger sensor; how alarms and clinician assignments are set; and how patient data and alarms are wirelessly transmitted from the bedside monitors to the central monitoring station where clinicians are immediately alerted to the patient's deteriorating health condition and can initiate prompt, appropriate rescue and treatment. (Click here to see the Patient SafetyNet system in action.)

The Patient SafetyNet system keeps patients safer by continuously, noninvasively, and remotely monitoring multiple physiological parameters, including the amount of oxygen in the blood and pulse rate, and automatically alerting clinicians to changes that signal patient distress or deterioration.  Results of a landmark two-year clinical study published in February demonstrated that Patient SafetyNet helps to reduce rescue events and activations by 65% and ICU transfers by 48%—contributing to significant improvements in patient outcomes.(1)

Medical Ward Nursing Unit Manager Cathy Grahame, acknowledging the importance of having such vital equipment, stated, "The Patient SafetyNet system allows us to respond immediately to a patient whose vital signs have changed, which, in this time-critical environment, improves our quality of care."

Masimo Patient SafetyNet is fully-integrated into John Hunter Children's Hospital's existing IT infrastructure with a central monitoring station located at the nurse's station.  The central monitoring station displays every Patient SafetyNet monitor on the ward, enabling nursing staff to view vital signs and alarm activations for each patient.  Community support, in particular the fundraising efforts of the employees and management of John Holland Pty Ltd, provided the initial funds to purchase the Patient SafetyNet system and 18 monitors.  The hospital is hoping to raise funds for more units.

Combining the gold standard performance of Masimo SET pulse oximetry with respiration rate monitoring at the point-of-care and automated, wireless clinician notifications via pager, Patient SafetyNet provides an unmatched level of safety for up to 80 patients on four floors. The system uses open IEEE industry standards for connectivity, which allows for more efficient sharing of data across a hospital's IT platforms, along with the option of full integration into a hospital's existing IT infrastructure—providing a lower overall cost of ownership and improved financial benefits.

(1) Taenzer, Andreas H.; Pyke, Joshua B.; McGrath, Susan P.; Blike, George T. "Impact of Pulse Oximetry Surveillance on Rescue Events and Intensive Care Unit Transfers: A Before-and-After Concurrence Study." Anesthesiology, February 2010, Vol. 112, Issue 2.  Available online here.

About Masimo

Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) develops innovative monitoring technologies that significantly improve patient care—helping solve "unsolvable" problems.  In 1995, the company debuted Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, known as Masimo SET®, which virtually eliminated false alarms and increased pulse oximetry's ability to detect life-threatening events.  More than 100 independent and objective studies demonstrate Masimo SET provides the most reliable SpO2 and pulse rate measurements even under the most challenging clinical conditions, including patient motion and low peripheral perfusion.  In 2005, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET® Pulse CO-OximetryTM, allowing noninvasive and continuous monitoring of blood constituents that previously required invasive procedures, including total hemoglobin (SpHbTM), oxygen content (SpOCTM), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO®), methemoglobin (SpMet®), and PVI®, in addition to SpO2, pulse rate, and perfusion index (PI).  In 2009, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET® Acoustic MonitoringTM, the first-ever noninvasive and continuous monitoring of acoustic respiration rate (RRa).  Masimo's Rainbow platform offers a breakthrough in patient safety by helping clinicians detect life-threatening conditions and helping guide treatment options.  Founded in 1989, Masimo has the mission of "Improving Patient Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications." Additional information about Masimo and its products may be found at www.masimo.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements as defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in connection with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations about future events affecting us and are subject to risks and uncertainties, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control and could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in our forward-looking statements as a result of various risk factors, including, but not limited to: risks related to our assumptions regarding the repeatability of study results, risks related to our assumptions that Masimo Patient SafetyNet will provide an effective early warning system of a patient's deteriorating physiological condition to enable timely rescue, risks related to our belief that Masimo SET pulse oximetry and Masimo Rainbow SET Pulse CO-Oximetry measurements will provide sufficient sensitivity and specificity to detect physiological abnormalities and potentially life-threatening conditions in real-time for all patients, and risks related to our assumptions regarding the systems' ability to deliver clinical improvement over alternative patient monitoring and assessment methods to increase patient safety and allow for further adoption of the technology, as well as other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our most recent reports  filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which may be obtained for free at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we do not know whether our expectations will prove correct. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today's date. We do not undertake any obligation to update, amend or clarify these forward-looking statements or the "Risk Factors" contained in our most recent reports filed with the SEC, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under the applicable securities laws.

Masimo, SET, Signal Extraction Technology, Improving Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications, Rainbow, SpHb, SpOC, SpCO, SpMet, PVI, RRa, Radical-7, Rad-87, Rad-57,Rad-9, Rad-8, Rad-5,Pulse CO-Oximetry and Pulse CO-Oximeter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Masimo Corporation.

SOURCE Masimo Corporation